[imagesource: Twitter / @Abramjee]
The scourge of kidnappings across the Cape continues.
Last Friday, 37-year-old Akter Pradhan was kidnapped in broad daylight.
His is the latest in a long line of kidnappings targeting businessmen in Cape Town. You may recall the kidnapping of Ismail Rajah, the CEO and founder of Good Hope Construction in Parow, who was finally returned home after a harrowing 111-day ordeal.
More recently, six-year-old Shahnawaz Asghar was grabbed from outside his house with reports suggesting a ransom of R800 000 was demanded for his safe return.
He was reunited with his family a day after he was taken.
Footage of Pradhan’s kidnapping was shared on social media by anti-crime activist Yusuf Abramjee:
A Bangladeshi businessman has been kidnapped in Cape Town. Akter Pradhan, who owns a large cash and carry in Mitchells Plain, was forced off the road and taken. pic.twitter.com/5m06x87ZaT
— Yusuf Abramjee (@Abramjee) August 26, 2022
How brazen is that? The kidnappers seem totally unperturbed that somebody is filming their crime, too.
IOL reports that Pradhan’s kidnapping is one of “several abductions of business owners and close family, including children, by an unidentified criminal syndicate”:
Pradhan is the owner of Cheaper Chips Cash & Carry, a wholesale store in Mitchells Plain.
Civil society organisation Women and Children at Concern (WCC) said it was concerned that the kidnapping of foreign business owners was becoming a rising criminal trend that police were battling to bring under control.
WCC secretary Hafiz Mohammed said: “So far, there have been four kidnappings in Mitchells Plain alone in just one month. The community is scared because they don’t know when they might be taken next, and how much these guys will ransom their lives for.”
The most recent stats show that between April and June of this year, 237 people were kidnapped in the Western Cape.
Speaking to eNCA, crime-fighting activist Hanif Loonat said syndicates now view these kidnappings as an easy score:
