WOMAN BRUTALLY ASSAULTED BY MOB

MANZINI – Every action has a consequence. Likewise, an elderly woman of Murray Camp location in Fairview was brutally beaten in the wee hours on Monday after she was caught allegedly loitering at a community police member’s home.

Narrating how *Sarah ended up being assaulted, the woman of the home where this happened, Thobile Mkhabela, said it was around 1am on Monday when she suddenly lost her sleep.
She said she first heard the tapping of footsteps near her door.

Scared as she was, Mkhabela said she then heard some noise as if the person on the other side was rubbing something on the door.
 Mkhabela said she was frightened so much that she woke up her husband who was fast asleep.

Upon hearing the rubbing sound, Mkhabela said her husband was also in a state of fear.
After a short while, Mkhabela said her husband, who also heads the area’s community police forum , gained the courage to get out of bed and peeped through the window.

As he did this, Mkhabela said her husband saw a figure in front of the door and as a result he shouted, “Wentani lapho?”

Combed

Startled by that she had been caught, Mkhabela said the woman took to her heels and combed the neighbouring homesteads, and ran towards the direction of Sarah’s home.

“Since we didn’t know what the person was doing on our doorstep, my husband jumped through the window to get out and chased after the woman. After a little while, he shouted and told me that he had caught her,” said Mkhabela.

The bellows of her husband are said to have caught the attention of a female community police member whose home is near the path where Sarah was caught. She and other members of the community, who heard the noise, came out to ascertain what was going on. By then, Mkhabela’s husband was said to have been dragging the woman back to his home.

There, Sarah was extensively interrogated by Mkhabela’s husband and other members of the community on what she had gone to do at the homestead.
However, Sarah allegedly remained quiet until a mob decided to whip her. Even then, she was said to have remained silent on what she had gone to do at the Mkhabela homestead at such an ungodly hour.

“When whipped, the woman hardly reacted but when she was beaten harder, she only pleaded that the men stop so that she could explain herself. But she ended up saying that she did not want to admit an offence that she did not commit,” Mkhabela stated.

Disagreements

When asked whether Sarah was related to the family or whether there had been disagreements between the two parties, Mkhabela said she did not recall any and that Sarah lived on the suburban side of the area, hence the shock of the incident.
“We are still asking ourselves what Sarah wanted from us because we are of very different backgrounds. Maybe the police will deduce something in their investigations into the matter,” Mkhabela added.

When sought for comment, Sarah denied having gone to Mkhabela’s home at night.
She claimed that she was only attacked while on her way home from accompanying an acquaintance. She said if the community police member claimed to have seen her at his home, he should have caught her then and asked what she was doing there.

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