Crime and more so petty crime, which certainly seems to be on the increase in the Laudium area, remains a huge concern for residents. As more and more nyoapes or vagrants move into Laudium, being ‘showered’ with money and other items including food by ‘big hearted’ residents, who strongly believe in giving charity to the poor and hungry, many residents say that some of these very vagrants, are the ones turning to crime in order to sustain their habit of taking drugs. Reports of petty theft continue to be received by the Laudium Sun, whilst the police remain quiet on these crimes and other crimes, not even willing to keep the community aware of the ‘modus operandi’ of criminals operating in the area, such as what and who to look out for and the common times of attacks, in order to protect themselves. In one of the latest petty crime incidents reported to the Laudium Sun by members of the community for stats purposes so that other residents can be warned, a home was broken into on Heliodor Street in Laudium last Saturday (August 10).
The incident that happened last Saturday came as a shock to both the family whose house was broken into and the neighbours as well. Home owner Kulsoom Kassam, the owner of the house on Heliodor Str, explained what transpired to the Laudium Sun, “When the incident happened on Saturday, my family and I were not at home, but rather on our way to Johannesburg. I only saw the message from my neighbour on a WhatsApp group at around 7 in the evening and I then immediately gave her a call as I was very concerned. She told me that she was watching TV with her daughter and while they were watching, they heard strange noises coming from outside and decided to go out and see what was happening.
When they got outside their house, they saw a tall black male who was spotted by passers-by coming out of our house, carrying a foldable table which he apparently stole from our garage. When the people asked him where he got the table from and what he was doing on our property, he denied getting into the house or stealing anything and then ran away. We then immediately decided to come back home as we were worried and unsure if the thief or thieves had stolen other items also. We suspect that the thief jumped over the palisades at the back of our house, so that he could get inside the yard and steal the table and some other items which were also missing.” Amidst all of this, the Laudium CPF responded to the scene before the police, with one of the CPF members who responded to the scene, Yaseen Tinwala, telling the Laudium Sun, “Upon our arrival at the scene, our members conducted a thorough perimeter check before approaching the residence. Some residents in the area who had gathered outside, informed us that a suspect, described as a tall black male wearing a t-shirt and jeans, had unlawfully entered the yard of one of their neighbours and stole some building material and a table. We were furthermore told that the
suspect fled towards the direction of Cuprene Street and even after our CPF members searched the area, we could not locate the suspect. The owner of the property wasadvised to file an official case with the police. We are not sure if only one suspect was involved in the theft.”