Rajagopalan Pullanikkatil, an Indian national who has been living in Lesotho since 1988, was driving from Avani Lesotho Hotel to his home in Lower Thetsane at around 7:30pm when he realised that he was being trailed.
As he increased speed, the weapon-wielding criminal also increased speed in an effort to overtake and block his car.
“I managed to drive fast not permitting the criminal to block me on the road,” Pullanikkatil says.
However, he says he did not report the incident to the police because of a previous incident when nothing came out of his attempt to report a case.
Pullanikkatil says 35 years ago, Lesotho was a haven of peace.
“Security was not a serious problem in Lesotho in those days,” he says.
He says there were minor crimes then and they were not of great concern.
But now things have changed with violent crimes such as armed robberies and car hijackings on the rise.
A deteriorating economic situation has meant that armed robbers are more willing to use violence to get their way.
He says he has been a victim of violent crime three times over the years.
In May 2003, five young men jumped over the compound wall after cutting the razor wires on top of the two-metre high wall and stormed into his house through the unlocked kitchen door pointing pistols at members of his family.
“No one had covered their faces. They looked in their 20s,” he says.
“They forced us to sit on the sofas and searched each one of us for any weapon and other valuables. One of them tied our hands together with tape,” he says.
“They ransacked the house, cut the telephone wire, took the key for the car, loaded valuables from the house in the car and sped off at about 8pm.”
Pullanikkatil says he called the police but until today his car and valuables were never recovered.
At the time he was living at Letsie Flats, along Constitution Road, just less than a kilometre from the Maseru Central police station.
In 2013 he moved to New Europa where his house was also attacked three times.
The first robbery involved five armed robbers who barged into the house in the night and remained inside the house for five hours threatening to kill him after ransacking the whole house, terrifying his three grandchildren who were below the age of 10.
They had stolen household items including cell phones, computers, a television, wrist watches, a wallet with cash and electronic cards.
They had packed the stolen items into his car parked in the premises and drove away.
The police recovered the abandoned car and a bunch of keys the next day but did not identify the criminals.
The robbers had used debit cards of his son and daughter-in-law twice, before midnight and the second encashment after midnight.
He installed a security alarm system and contracted a security company to secure the premises.
The second break in happened in April 2015 between 2 and 2:30pm when there was nobody at home.
“I and my wife returned home from the South African High Commission and found the front door partially broken up by intruders who had escaped after sensing our return home,” he says.
The matter was reported to the police who questioned a suspect but no arrest or further action was made.
The third robbery involving five armed robbers took place in June 2016.
Armed robbers barged into the house while he and his wife were returning home at 6:45 pm.
His two grand-children and daughter-in-law were inside the house.
“One of the robbers hit me with a weapon on my head which caused my scalp to bleed,” he says.
Another robber destroyed the alarm system using a weapon he was carrying while others rapidly ransacked the house and took a wallet with cash, bank cards, driver’s licence and his national ID card.
“The police were able to recover the stolen wallet the next day without the cash in it at Maseru Mall but never took further action,” he says.
’Mankau Jeremiah from Lithabaneng in the southern outskirts of Maseru says when she separated with her husband earlier this year she had to sell her car because she felt unsafe.
Jeremiah, 35, says her husband was once injured when armed criminals attempted to steal their Mazda Demio car at their rented home late last year.
In June this year she was travelling in the same car from Thaba-Bosiu when she spotted a white Honda Fit tailing her until she got to her house.
She had phoned her police friends and told them of the suspicious car and they found them already waiting at the gate.
“The Honda Fit made a sharp U-turn and sped away,” Jeremiah says.
“The police gave chase but they never caught it,” she says.
“Fearful that one day I would be killed during armed robbery, I decided to sell the car.”
Just last Wednesday there were reports of three instances of violent crimes in Maseru – a hijacking in Hillsview, an attempted hijacking on Kofi Anan Road, a break-in at a house near Browns Cash and Carry involving a Filipino family.
Locals have not been spared in the carjacking spree.
Polelo Moraka, a taxi driver in Maseru, says his Honda Fit was saved in Naleli by people who noticed that he was under attack over the weekend.
Moraka says he had just dropped off the last of his passengers near Maria ’Mabasotho Cathedral on Sunday night when another Honda Fit blocked the road.
He says two men alighted from it while its driver was left behind, one of them pulled out a gun and demanded that he hands over the car keys.
The passenger who had walked a few paces from the car, he says, raised alarm and a group of men who were a few metres away came running.
The attackers ran back to their car and sped away, he says.
“I want to thank this mother for raising alarm when I was attacked,” Moraka says.
“The attackers, it seems, did not want to injure anyone but to seize my car at gunpoint. Otherwise they could have shot and killed me or anyone who came to help me,” he says.
The above incidents are a clear indication of the rise in violent crime in Lesotho.
The Emergency Response Group Lesotho, a WhatsApp group formed last week with the aim to alert the police immediately when one sees crime happening, has raised serious concerns about the decreasing levels of security in Maseru.
A worried businessman in the Emergency Response Group Lesotho says some scrapyards could be driving the hijackings in Lesotho.
The businessman says “some of the scrap yards” could be selling parts ripped off stolen cars.
Senior Inspector Sekhonyana of the Vehicle Theft Detection and Robbery Crime Unit says 76 cars have been stolen in Maseru city alone this year.
S/Insp Sekhonyana says they have only recovered 25 of these cars.
“Maseru and its environs have an extremely high rate of auto theft,” S/Insp Sekhonyana says.
“Only last week,” he says, “we had a few cases of car theft from Maseru West.”
He says criminals are mostly targeting Muslims of Asian descent when they are going for their afternoon prayers.
S/Insp Sekhonyana says “of all the car models, the Honda Fit appears to be the most targeted”.
He says the carjacking hotspots are Maseru West, Thetsane, Mabote, and other nearby places.
Once stolen, he says, it is difficult to locate the vehicles in the country because they are often taken to South Africa where they are rebirthed and sold.
Car rebirthing means altering the identification of a stolen vehicle or parts so that a potential buyer or the police won’t easily notice that it has been stolen.
Some of the vehicle parts are used to fix write-offs.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNOCD) shows that at least 437 cars were stolen in Lesotho in 2009. The stats were collected in 2018.
It could not be said, in light of the statistics S/Insp Sekhonyana provides, that the crime rate is reducing because the UNOCD’s numbers show the countrywide picture.
S/Insp Sekhonyana’s statistics is of the Maseru city alone.
The UNOCD does not have data of up to 2023.
The World Atlas, an international survey magazine, says in Lesotho the private car theft rate for 2003 – 2022 stands at 21.8 cases per 100 000 population.
Private cars means motor vehicles, excluding motorcycles, commercial vehicles, buses, lorries, construction and agricultural vehicles.
Tumelo Kepa, the LING-Hollard General Manager, says the insurance company registered only seven Lesotho cars that were stolen in South Africa for the past three years.
Kepa says only one has been recovered.
“Perhaps this is because some of the stolen cars whose news we always hear about on radio stations were not insured with us,” Kepa says.
The Africa Organised Crime Index says criminal networks in Lesotho commonly engages in illicit activities such as vehicle theft and smuggling, diamond smuggling, human trafficking, livestock theft and drug trafficking.
“A moderate level of violence is associated with these activities, particularly in the case of vehicle hijackings,” the Index says.
Caswell Tlali
