Search continues for Shanawaaz Asgar who was abducted outside home in Kensington
The search for six-year-old Shanawaaz Asghar who was abducted at gunpoint from outside his home in Kensington on Wednesday continues.
Kensington Community Policing Forum chairperson Cheslyn Steenberg on Thursday said a 72-hour plan had been activated to commit more resources to the search for Asghar and his five kidnappers.
Distraught Kensington residents have called on authorities to explore all avenues.
“I read about these stories every day in the newspapers, but never in my wildest dreams did I think it would happen here,” one resident said.
Another resident said: “We have seen this boy before and you have to get some kind of emotional reaction to [the situation].”
On Wednesday, it emerged the owner of one of the two getaway vehicles had been identified, but it remained unclear whether the kidnappers had made contact with the boy’s parents.
RESIDENTS LIVING IN FEAR
Residents in the Kensington area said they were living in fear since Ashgar’s abduction.
“The kid stays down the road. You have to have some kind of emotional reaction. It’s quite sad actually,” said one resident.
Another resident said that it could be anyone’s child.
“It might be my child, it might be somebody else’s child but a child… it drives me to tears,” the resident said.
A mother of a seven-year-old boy said that she immediately started worrying about her own son’s safety when she heard of Ashgar’s abduction.
“I wanted to go back to school and just sit there and ask the school ‘where is my son? Is he OK?’ but this is terrifying.”
KIDNAPPINGS ESCALATING DAILY IN SA
According to Bianca van Aswegen, who is the national coordinator at Missing Children South Africa, kidnappings were escalating daily in South Africa.
“There’s opportunistic kidnappings that happen – we’ve got parental abductions, we’ve got kidnapping for ransom, we’ve got human trafficking.”
She added that there had been a rise in kidnappings for ransom and human trafficking since the national lockdown in 2020 and this has been exacerbated by increasing levels of poverty and job losses.
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