Family mourns son killed in tragic accident
APietermaritzburg mother's desperate search for her missing son ended in tragedy when his body was recovered in a Durban morgue a week after he went missing.
Tracy Samjhawan recounted a torturous week searching for her son, Vijesh, which resulted in another search for closure around the reason for his death after his body wound up in the Phoenix Mortuary.
When Public Eye spoke to Samjhawan, the mother of slain Vijesh Harilal Samjhawan,
26, she could not hold back the tears as she recounted the story of her son's shocking disappearance and how the search led her to his tragic death.
She said her son had moved to Durban last year when the company he was working for relocated there. When her son did not return her calls on March 29, she started to worry.
“Normally he phones me during the day because I am at home. He will call and ask me if I ate and check if I'm okay. If he was busy when I called, he would always call me back. When he did not answer this time, I didn’t want to be a nagging mother, so I did not call again,” she said.
The last conversation she had with him was at 7:50pm on March 28. “I asked him what he cooked for supper. I tried to phone him the next day, but I could not get a hold of him. His phone kept on ringing. I tried all his numbers, the old ones and the new ones and I thought maybe his lights were out and that is why I could not get through."
Samjhawan said her intuition was telling her that something was wrong. “The next day, when there was still no answer from him, I began to feel that something was wrong. I couldn’t sleep, I was so stressed,” she said.
Samjhawan and her brother travelled to Durban on March 30, when he still hadn't made contact.
“When we arrived at the place he was staying, we saw that the patio doors were open and he wasn’t in the house. It was unlike him to leave doors open and go, unless he was in a rush,” she said.
Samjhawan added that they could tell from CCTV footage that he jumped into a car. “In the footage, we could see that he took an Uber." She later discovered he had gone to the shop.
Samjhawan was then advised to file a missing person’s report.
“At the time, the worst thought crossed my mind, that he could have been killed or kidnapped, so I went to file a missing person report. I was still phoning his number but there was no response.
"We would phone the police on a daily basis to find out if they have any news to give us any feedback,” she said, adding that she had hoped it was a hostage situation, as there was more of a chance to get him back.
“My family wanted to make flyers, and get media attention in hopes of finding him. Everybody was trying to find him. I was worried because everything was going through my mind. Even if there was a ransom involved, we would pay it to make sure that he comes back alive.
"All this time, I did not know that he was lying dead in a mortuary, for four days at that point,” she said.
She then received the dreaded call from the police to come and identify an unknown body.
“The only call we received from the police was to inform us that there was an unidentified body at the morgue, and ask us to come to identify the body,” she said.
Samjhawan added that her family had to identify her son’s body by his tattoos. “When I went to the mortuary, I did not expect to see my son,” she said.
Samjhawan said that according to the police report, he was killed by a SUV, that hit him while he was crossing the road.
“According to the police report, a 4x4 that was driving at a fast speed and [the driver] hit Vijesh and then hit into another car,” she said.
“He was dead on scene. At first, he was taken to Mahatma Gandhi Hospital, and then to Phoenix Mortuary. He was in the mortuary for a week [before we found him],” she said.
Samjhawan said she was haunted by the sight of her son’s face. “I could see no injuries on his body, maybe they were internal,” said Samjhawan.
The devastated mother said her son was well loved by many. “He was a good person. There were so many people who came to his funeral, I did not know most of them, whether they were young or old. I did not expect so many people at his funeral,” said Samjhawan.
She called for justice for her son. “The driver needs to be held accountable for what he has done. My son was 26 and he was living his life. The driver has not been arrested.
"A case of homicide was opened pending investigation, which is what they told me. They have boxes and boxes of cases from 2003 of people like me who have not received any closure and I hope that justice can be served,” she said.
SAPS Kwazulu-natal media centre did not repond to the query regarding the case at the time of going to print.