Johannesburg – Seven Indian men have been arrested and linked to the brutal killings of more than 20 people in Phoenix, north of Durban, which were carried out during the violent mass looting of businesses in Kwa-Zulu-Natal and Gauteng.
Police in KwaZulu-Natal declined to attach the racial demographics of the suspects fearing that it would flare up racial tensions.
Sunday World has since established that in the early hours of Friday morning, police swooped on four alleged key movers in the atrocities.
They are believed to have supplied guns to the vigilante groups.
A member of a community structure representing the communities of Zwelisha, Bhambayi and Amawoti, established to assist police in their probe into the mass murders, confirmed that the arrests were made.
“We hope this will be a breakthrough, out of the five suspects, one of them was already inside. He was arrested on Friday. All of them are of Indian heritage,” explained Thula Dlamini, a member of the community forum.
A 10-member team of detectives was assembled to investigate the circumstances that led to the killings.
It is headed by Major-General Mandlenkosi Chirwa. Police Minister Bheki Cele cautioned against inflating the number of the deceased and racial profiling of the murders, saying they should be regarded as pure acts of criminality instead.
His plea came after it emerged that more than 128 bodies were languishing at a government mortuary in Phoenix.
“We are adding more pathologists so we can accelerate post-mortems. This is the only way we will know whether the 128 bodies were because of what happened in Phoenix,” said Cele.
Meanwhile, EFF MP Makoti Khawula, who has been assisting the bereaved families, said most of the Phoenix victims were shot in the back execution style with some suffering deadly head injuries.
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