A petrol attendant at the Shell petrol-filling station in Mamelodi East was shot and killed in the wee hours of Monday morning, 15 April.
Three robbery incidents of petrol-filling stations in Mamelodi East occured within minutes of each other on Monday, something described by witnesses as being unprecedented.
The three petrol-filling stations that were robbed are Shell and Total garages on Tsamaya Road and BP at Mamelodi Gardens.
Gauteng Police told Tshwane Talks that they were on the lookout for a gang of heavily-armed men who shot and killed a 30-year-old man in an incident of business robbery in Mamelodi.
According to an eye witness who wished to remain anonymous, a man walked into the convenience store of Shell petrol-filling station and bought some items and a few minutes after he had left, a group of men armed with pistols, rifles and bombs approached the station and gave orders that the closed door of the convenience store be opened.
The men then went inside the store, bombed the drop safe, took away the money therein, fired shot skywards and ran towards the nearby Total filling-station station which they also robbed.
“The guy who was shot and killed had tried to run away from the scene but the robbers chased after him and shot him fatally,” said the anonymous witness.
In another robbery incident apparently committed by the same gang of robbers on the same night, police spokesperson Colonel Noxolo Kweza told Tshwane Talks that three armed men walked inside the station’s convenience store and ordered the cashier who was on duty to get out of the store.
The cashier later heard a loud bang and saw the robbers fleeing the scene with a Toyota Quantum that they had hijacked from a taxi driver right at the filling station.
The Toyota Quantum was later recovered on the outskirts of the township.
“No arrest has been made yet and police are investigating a case of murder, business robberies and damages to state property.
Anyone with information may contact crime stop on 08600 10111 or 10111,” said Colonel Kweza.
One petrol attendant told Tshwane Talks that he and his colleagues working in Tshwane no longer felt safe as they didn’t know as to when the robbers would return to torment and rob them again.
A concerned resident told Tshwane Talks that this kind of incident had never happened before and that it was sad that a young man (the petrol attendant) had to lose his life in such a horrible manner.
“This is history because never before have we as Mamelodi residents experienced a situation where three petrol-filling stations were robbed in one day,” said the aggrieved resident.
“People who did this are obviously not from Mamelodi and they are trying to cripple the economy of this township,” he said.
The resident said the robbers might have acted on information doing rounds that the cash-in-transit companies had not collected cash from the filling stations on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
“We live in Mamelodi and it is time we stood together to protect our economy,” he said.
“We are going to hunt them (the robbers) down, they can’t just come into the township and do as they wish,” said the resident.
People living as far away as Nellmapius in the South of Mamelodi told Tshwane Talks that they heard the loud bangs and thought it was the sound of lightning.
Those living near the bombed filling stations said it was like the whole incident was happening right inside their bedrooms.
They say the explosive sound of the bombs and gun shots roused them from their sleep at around 4am on Monday morning.