Mary Papayya
Mary Papayya
Police yesterday arrested four more men in connection with the killing of a senior KwaZulu-Natal police officer, bringing to nine the number of suspects arrested in connection with the shooting.
Inspector Ageet Mewa, 49, was shot in the head by robbers in Greytown in northern KwaZulu-Natal on Wednesday.
Mewa had been a policeman for 28 years. He is survived by his wife and three children.
Police said the thieves entered a supermarket in Voortrekker Street and held up staff, and forced the manager to open the safe.
The gang then fled into the street but not before taking a substantial amount of cash.
They then opened fire on the two police officers who were on a routine street patrol in a police vehicle.
Mewa died at the scene after being struck in the head.
His colleague Inspector Navin Maharaj, 43, was hit in the neck.
He was airlifted to a Pietermaritzburg hospital in a critical condition.
After shooting the officers the men fled in two hijacked vehicles belonging to customers en route to the store.
The vehicles were abandoned at a nearby sugar cane plantation into which the men fled.
After an extensive police search, five men were arrested and various firearms recovered.
The four other men were arrested in the Greytown area.
"One of the suspects who had earlier fled into the plantation at Inandi Road was killed when he opened fire on police officers," said police spokesman Henry Budhram.
The nine men are expected to appear in the Greytown magistrate's court shortly.