Father-in-law of murder accused Rameez Patel is gunned down
● The bodies keep falling around double murder accused Rameez Patel.
The latest victim is his father-in-law, Yunus Mayet, 52, who was kidnapped and shot dead last weekend. No arrests have been made.
Yunus is the father of Nasreen Mayet, who married Rameez in a Muslim traditional ceremony in Polokwane in 2015.
The marriage was arranged after Rameez’s wife Fatima, 28, was found murdered in their home in
Nirvana, Polokwane, in April
2015. The Polokwane businessman is accused of her murder, as well as the murder of his mother,
Mahejeen, last
September. And they are not the only family members to have died violently.
Patriarch Feroz Patel, who was the founder of the vast family fortune, was shot dead in 2016 — a murder still unsolved.
Rameez’s younger brother Razeen survived being shot several times in July, just days before he was due to testify against Rameez. He fled SA shortly after the incident.
Now the Mayet family have to pick up the pieces after Yunus’s kidnapping and murder. Limpopo police are not linking Rameez to the murder of his father-in-law.
The family had just arrived at their Sterpark home from a local mall soon after 11pm last Saturday when at least three men in a black VW Golf started firing at them.
Limpopo provincial police spokesperson Col Moatshe Ngoepe said before the men grabbed Yunus and drove away with him, they fired randomly in the direction of the house and took phones, watches and cash.
Police later found his bullet-riddled body almost 10km away, near the Polokwane airport on Silicon Road.
The Mayet family said this week that police told them not to speak to the media about the incident.
Ngoepe said: “All these cases are being investigated by a dedicated team from the provincial commissioner’s office and we will later give a consolidated update.
“The police in Polokwane have launched a massive manhunt for the suspects involved in the kidnapping and murder.”
A person who is working closely with the family said Yunus did not approve of the relationship Nasreen had with Rameez.
Nasreen was previously married to Abdul Nazim, but they divorced in 2015.
She “almost immediately” fell in love with Rameez, the family member said. “The fight Rameez and Fatima had on the day of her death was because of this suspected relationship Rameez had with Nasreen. Her father did not approve of this relationship at all.”
On Tuesday Rameez briefly appeared in the Polokwane Magistrate’s Court in connection with his mother’s murder.
He’s expected back in court on October 4.