Probe into more truck incidents

MURDER: DRIVERS UNDER ATTACK ‘The complainant reports that he jumped out of the vehicle and fled when three men started firing shots.’

Police are investigating a case of murder, attempted murder and malicious damage to property after a man was shot dead, another one injured and a truck set alight in Leondale, east of Joburg, on Monday evening.

According to police spokesperson Kay Makhubele, police responded to a crime scene near the N3 onramp towards Heidelberg and found a truck and trailer on fire.

Next to the truck there was a man who was bleeding from a gunshot wound. He was rushed to a nearby hospital.

Police found a second victim in the veld with gunshot and burn wounds to the upper body. This second victim, a 45-year-old male employee of a trucking company in Pinetown, KwaZulu-Natal, was declared dead on the scene.

In another incident on Monday evening in Alberton, also east of Joburg, a truck driver reported he was driving along Black Reef Road in Roodekop. A s he turned into Galilee Road en route to the trucking company, he said three men in balaclavas appeared from a Hyundai i20 with unknown registration number plates.

“The complainant reports that he jumped out of the vehicle and fled when the three men started firing shots. On his return, he found the truck on fire. He escaped uninjured.”

A case of malicious damage to property has been opened.

And in Vosloorus, a 27-yearold truck driver was travelling from Springs, Ekurhuleni, to a recycling company in Booysens, Johannesburg, when he was allegedly hijacked in Booysens.

The truck was set alight by unknown suspects near Extension 25 in Vosloorus. The driver managed to escape.

“A multidisciplinary team has been deployed to urgently address the spike in attacks on trucks. To this end, five suspects were arrested for intimidation on Monday after a group of about 40 people arrived at a freight company in Alberton, demanding jobs,” said Makhubele.

“It is reported that the group broke into a frenzy when they were handed application forms for employment.”

In the Western Cape, two unknown cars allegedly tried to force a truck to stop, though the driver managed to get away.

In Mpumalanga, two more trucks were torched early yesterday morning.

According to All Truck Drivers Forum and Allied South Africa, the national shutdown which began on Monday and will end today was a protest against the employment of foreign national drivers in the SA trucking industry.

In a statement, the Road Freight Association called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to intervene in the protests.