Frustrated Muledane residents opt to deal with criminals themselves

By Elmon Tshikhudo

The prevalence of crime at Muledane, outside Thohoyandou, is pushing residents to extremes as they feel that reporting cases to the police takes too much time, and in the end, they resort to solving crime on their own.

The residents claim their village knows no peace, with many crimes being committed during load shedding in the dark. The most sought-after commodities for criminals now seem to be copper pipes and electricity cables, which are sold as scrap metal. Households are left without electricity for long periods at a time because of this. More than 30 families have already fallen victim to this type of crime.

On Sunday, 26 February, an unlucky thief was caught stealing copper pipes at Block J Extension 1. The suspected thief, who is a local in the village, earned the wrath of the community when an angry mob of unknown people got hold of him before the police could arrive and beat him to death. The incident happened between 14:00 and 15:00 in the afternoon.

According to the acting spokesperson for the Vhembe SAPS, Sergeant Vuledzani Dathi, the unknown victim was suspected of being involved in stealing copper cables and taps around Shayandima, Muledane and Maniini. “The community set out to look for him and he was found at Muledane, where he was seriously assaulted. When the report arrived at the [police] station, [the victim] was taken to Tshilidzini Hospital, where he passed away while being assisted by the doctors,” Dathi said.

As if that was not enough, on Tuesday 28 February, between 16:00 and 17:00, another thief was caught stealing at a house he had previously burgled, and stole a laptop, soap and sneakers. Fortunately, someone was in the house this time and alerted the community. The man was surrounded by community members, who beat him to a pulp before handing him over to the police.

Block J Extension 1’s civic chairperson, Mr Tshimangadzo Sikhau, said residents were plain tired of crimes committed in their areas every day. “Day in and day out we wake up to housebreakings and theft. In recent times, we have had more than 30 incidents of cable and copper theft in the area. We don’t have peaceful sleep anymore as we have to patrol the streets as soon as the electricity goes off. We have come to realise that thugs monitor our movements and steal without any fear,” he said. Sikhau further indicated that people are angry and have lost their trust in law-enforcement agencies, because crime keeps on spiralling. “People are angry, and you cannot blame them when they go to such extremes. What is quite disturbing is that, in many instances, foreigners get blamed for crime, but in these latest two incidents, local people are the culprits. We found out that the copper and cables are sold to scrap metal dealers to finance drug addicts,” Sikhau said.