By: Aneeqa du Plessis

With more than 24-hours gone, residents in the Kensington area have continued relentless searches for Grade R learner Shanawaaz Asghar, 6, who was kidnapped outside of his home yesterday. Asghar was snatched by a group of men whilst en route to his school, Hidayatul Islam, a mere stone’s-throw away from his house on the corner of 4th Avenue and 9th Street.

However, since the story broke surrounding the incident false speculations have been made across social media regarding the Pakistani boy and his family. Speaking on VOC’s Breakfast show on Thursday morning, School Governing Body (SGB) Chairperson at Hidayatul Islam, Dawood Essack clarified that the Asghar family are not affluent as per assumption. According to Essack members of the community have suggested a ransom demand has been made to the family.

“The father is from Pakistan and has been living in South Africa for the past 30 years, but the family lives an extremely humble life and in no way can he [father] be assumed to be wealthy or a businessman. He does odd jobs for his brother in-law. There is no way that kidnapping can be related to a business owner,” explained Essack.

“I heard from members in the community that a ransom amount has already been demanded but where does this news come from. I’m not saying it’s not authentic but there is nothing official at this point. I cannot verify such claims,” added Essack.

Asghar was snatched by a group of five men that made use of two cars, a white sedan and a silver VW polo. However, the registration numbers on the vehicles were cloned and traced back to an unrelated family in Ottery. Essack said the father of the boy, flagged down a police vehicle minutes after the incident but he was met with a lackluster approach.

“This is so unfortunate that he managed to stop a police vehicle and show him the getaway cars as they sped off, but all the officers said to him were ‘take us to where the incident happened’,” explained Essack.

He further reminded caregivers to be vigilant of their children especially during school drop-offs.

“I think many times parents take for granted that their children are safe, but the onus lies on you to ensure that your kids are going to be fine. Let’s be more attentive. You need to be alert. Unfortunately, more of these kidnappings are happening around us and we need be responsible for our kids as far as possible,” said Essack.

Lastly, Essack discouraged political parties to use this unfortunate incident as a way to garner votes.

“We cannot afford to create anxiety in our communities and furthermore, we don’t have time to be playing party politics. If the child had gone missing or run away, I would understand a search in the area, but this little boy was taken. Let’s not waste time or interfere with the authorities and the progress they’re making and we don’t want to jeopardize the case at this point,” ended Essack.

VOC