Worshippers warned
RAMADAN MAKES FOR SOFT TARGETS, SAY CRIME FIGHTERS
MUSLIM worshippers have become soft targets for criminals during Ramadan.
Over the past two weeks, two fathers were shot in front of their children and the congregants of two mosques were held at gunpoint and robbed. Crime fighters condemned the attacks. In the latest incident, two worshippers at the Zeenatul Islam Masjid in Kensington, Johannesburg, were robbed on Monday evening.
Then, on Thursday, a Pietermaritzburg businessman was attacked and shot in front of his six-year-old son.
A week earlier POST reported about a Gauteng doctor, Khalid Hussain, who was ambushed and shot four times at his home, while his teenage son was held at gunpoint; and worshippers at the Bilal Masjid, in the same province, were attacked and robbed.
The Chief Executive Officer of Crime Air Network Initiative and executive chairman of the Benoni Community Policing Forum, Reza Patel, believed the robberies at the mosques were strategic.
He said the attackers could have pretended to be worshippers and preyed on the vulnerability of congregants, knowing they would not resist.
“During the fasting, the worshippers’ vulnerability is targeted. They concentrate so much on their prayers and helping others that when a stranger approaches them, they don’t realise the person could be a criminal,” Patel said.
He said one of the worshippers at the Zeenatul Islam Masjid was robbed of his personal belongings in the parking lot, and R5 000 was taken from another, while walking towards the mosque.
He said the killing of the Gauteng doctor and Pietermaritzburg businessman, Imdad Ashrif Bhatti, showed crime against Muslims during Ramadan was getting out of hand.
Community activist and the former chairman of the Booysens Sector One Neighbourhood Watch in Robertsham, Mohammed Ismail, agreed.
He said congregants should now be on guard at places of worship, while the head of CrimeLine, Yusuf Abramjee, added that it was worrying that worshippers and mosques were under attack.
In Thursday’s Pietermaritzburg shooting, Bhatti died in his wife’s arms after completing his prayers.
The 42-year-old parked his car outside his Newholmes Road home when he was attacked and shot by unknown suspects. Bhatti died on his way to hospital.
Police spokesman Captain Thulani Zwane said three men smashed Bhatti’s car window with a baton and fired at him. He said the suspects then dragged Bhatti out of his BMW and sped off in it.
Nida, 32, who married the father of three in 2008, said her husband, his sixyear-old son, Haris, and his brother, Hafiz, had just returned from conducting Taraweeh (Ramadan evening prayer) at the local mosque.
“I prepared supper with his two daughters, Laida (10) and Hamiel (eight), when I heard three gunshots. When I looked out the window, I saw Imdad’s white BMW parked outside. It was only when I saw him fall and his car speed off that I realised something was wrong.” Nida rushed to her husband’s side. As he lay on the ground, she said his three children watched in horror as she tended to him.
“We were all in shock. While I tried to stop the bleeding, they pulled at him and cried for their daddy.”
She said while en route to a nearby hospital, Bhatti looked into her eyes.
“He was unable to speak but I knew he was saying goodbye. A few seconds later, he took his last breath.”
Nida said that since the shooting, the children were having nightmares and refuse to sleep alone.
She wants answers over his death. “They should have just taken the car and left. They should have spared his life.”
She said Bhatti planned to open new businesses in Pietermaritzburg – aside from his current hardware store in Berg Street. Bhatti was buried on Friday. Captain Zwane said charges of murder and carjacking were being investigated. The stolen car was recovered at Birmingham Road in Eastwood.