The latest spate of drive-by shootings across the city of Durban has once again shone the spotlight on KwaZulu-Natal’s thriving hit men for hire industry.
This week, five people were killed and one person is in a serious condition following three drive-by shootings.
On Wednesday, a man was shot while seated at a car wash in Clark Road.
In a video of the incident, the man can be seen sitting on a bench when moments later, a white Toyota Etios drives up to the entrance, the shooter alights from the vehicle, runs up to the man, fires a shot and gets back into the vehicle, which then drives away from the scene. The man is seen falling to the ground. He was treated at the scene before being rushed to a nearby hospital for further care.
On Tuesday, Brandon “Puff” Kalicharan, his wife and their nine-year-old daughter were shot while travelling along Peters Road in Springfield Park.
Emer-G-Med spokesperson Kyle van Reenen said that upon arrival on scene a Volkswagen Amarok was found to have been sprayed with large-calibre bullets.
Kalicharan and his wife died at the scene.
“The girl went into cardiac arrest at the scene and CPR efforts were initiated. She was rushed by ambulance under the care of an emergency care practitioner to a nearby hospital for further care. However, she succumbed to her injuries in hospital,” he said.
Just a short while before, two people were shot dead in Berea. Van Reenen said that at about 2pm, emergency teams attended a shooting incident in Carters Avenue.
He said two men were found with multiple gunshot wounds.
“The first was declared dead on arrival of paramedics whilst the other was found in a critical condition. Advanced life support resuscitation efforts were attempted. However, the man succumbed to his injuries and was declared dead on the scene,” Van Reenen said.
KZN Violence Monitor Mary de Haas said the use of hit men has been going on for years.
“Whether it has anything to do with organised paramilitary training, which has been happening in the province for years, is not known as there are many way of training hit men. Most are probably linked to the taxi industry and some to security companies as the industry is huge and many companies operate without registration,” she said.
De Haas said in some instances, security companies are linked to politicians to do municipal guarding, allowing them to purchase firearms.
“Hit men are able to operation with impunity due to the dysfunctionality of police, especially in crime intelligence. Every station should have a crime intelligence member who uses a web of informers to report on criminal activities in the area, and those reports are supposed to inform policing priority. Years ago a senior police officer told me that it no longer happens.
“It is the job of crime intelligence to pick this type of information up, and it fails to do so, hence the assassination of AKA and countless others the public doesn’t get to hear about. If you read court reports in the media, ordinary citizens who want to kill someone seem to easily find a hit man with a gun, so why don’t the police know about them?” De Haas said.
Last week, five suspected hit men were arrested and two AK-47 rifles recovered in Cato Manor. At the time, IOL reported that police officers were conducting routine patrols in Cato Manor when they were alerted by a resident about suspicious-looking occupants driving around the area. The men were reportedly en route to carry out a hit on a prominent person in the area.
IOL