Shoppers take cover as robbers shoot, flee

POLICE are searching for a group of men who held up Shah jewellers at the Atrium shopping mall in Overport.

Four men entered and exited the Atrium from the Peter Mokaba (Ridge) Road lower level yesterday.

They walked into the store, held up staff at gunpoint and took an undisclosed amount of cash and jewellery.

While leaving, one of them used a rilfe to fire off several shots to scare shoppers.

None of the shoppers was reported to have been injured.

The robbers fled in a white Polo. Police found car parked in Fyfe Road, about 3km away, in Morningside. The vehicle had a set of false number plates. The car was reported stolen from the Durban beachfront yesterday morning.

The ricocheting bullets caused several windows to shatter at the Peter Mokaba Road exit.

Customers and staff in the stores took cover when the shots rang out. Customers at a restaurant also fled before they could finish their meals.

“The bangs were loud. We were scared. People were running everywhere. We left our cash till points and ran to the back of the shop. I saw people sitting down on the floor of the shop not knowing what to expect. It was frightening,” a staff member at one of the stores said.

A shopper, who wished to remain anonymous, said she was on the escalator when she heard the loud bangs.

“After a few bangs I realised it was a gun going off. I grabbed the person next to me in shock. We crawled into a shop nearby and took cover,” she said.

Staff employed in businesses in the office tower above the mall said they heard the echo from the bangs and initially thought there was a vehicle collision on Peter Mokaba Road.

Police spokesperson Colonel Thembeka Mbele said Berea police station had opened a case of business robbery.