Police minister Bheki Cele and police commissioner Gen Fannie Masemola visited Diepsloot in northern Johannesburg on Wednesday as the community threatened to shut down the area and remove criminal elements on Thursday.

Irate residents claimed criminals had free rein and police were not doing anything about it. Speaking to eNCA, one of them claimed foreigners were involved in crimes.

Gauteng community safety MEC Faith Mazibuko was also in Diepsloot to hear their concerns.

Residents said they were being terrorised by criminals and there had been a number of murders in the area recently.

About 200 protesters gathered outside the Diepsloot police station for an audience with Cele. Cele and Masemola arrived for talks with police management.  

Cele’s spokesperson Lirandzu Themba said the minister and Masemola were expected to meet provincial police commissioner Maj-Gen Girly Mbele and her management team in Diepsloot, to thrash out and implement lasting solutions to some of the community’s policing problems.

Local councillor Abraham Mabuke said he was expecting Cele to give the community an assurance that more police and vehicles would be deployed to the area.

“We are expecting to do a walkabout with the minister today so that he can see where the problem is ... We expect to go door-to-door with him, to the place where those people have been murdered, so that he will be able to see for himself.

“The minister must give us the time frames on when the police and home affairs people are going to do a door-to-door operation ... searching all these illegal immigrants. For quite long, we have been singing the same song that the same people are the problem.”

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