When Mehmood Tariq opened his mini supermarket for business as usual, only three months into his new venture – he hoped to attract customers, but ended up drawing the wrong sort of attention to his shop, that was targeted by thugs.
Last Thursday (March 15) at around 8:30am, a group of armed thugs attacked the Shehr Yar Supermarket on Bengal Street, Ext 3.
Speaking to the Laudium Sun, Mehmood, a Pakistani national, related the shocking events of that Thursday morning.
"I have been living in Laudium for 15 years now and this is the first time I have been a victim of crime. I had to purchase stock for my shop, so I decided to leave my younger brother, Mahomed, at the till and left the store at around 7:30am, to Pretoria West. At around 8:40am, I received a call from a customer’s phone and it was my shaken up brother telling me that he had been robbed," Mehmood explained.
"According to my brother, three thugs entered the shop and it looked at first, like they were customers but in a flash, one of them pulled out a gun and pointed it at my brother, while the other two who seemed to also be armed, began to ransack the store. The thugs fled with the previous day's earnings, as well as my brother's HTC cell phone, which is worth about R7000. They then ran off, down Bengal Street, leaving my brother in shock," Mehmood said.
"When I arrived around 30 minutes later, I found my brother still trembling after the robbery. I am glad that he was not hurt. I just opened this small supermarket three months ago and was still trying to get on my feet. Now this will be a major setback for me," Mehmood added despondently.
"What surprised me is that my brother's phone was still on for three hours after it was stolen and even after we informed police about this, they insisted that they couldn't trace the phone. I was so disappointed with them. I now understand why locals think so lowly of our police, who couldn't be bothered - the cops just opened a docket, and that was that," he said.
"I have no hope of recovering what was stolen and can now only try to ensure that my supermarket is properly secured. I have installed gates at the entrance and I have also hired extra staff to watch. It's my attempt to prevent something like this from happening again," Mehmood said.
A case of armed robbery was opened at the local police station.
The Bengal Street Ext 3 mini supermarket that was targeted by thugs this past Thursday, March 15.
Devastated business owner, Mehmood Tariq.