After a week of media filled with the missing persons reports of Shireen Essop and Maria Pop, an incident of kidnapping is yet again reported; this time, fortunately, a failed attempt. Mieshka Achmat (25) from Parkwood recounts how she was stabbed and assaulted by a man trying to force her into a white vehicle on Tuesday.
In an interview with IOL‘s Robin-Lee Francke, Achmat described how two men in un unknown vehicle tried to abduct her while she was walking to work. Achmat normally has transport to work, but on this day she was running late after taking her child to the healthcare centre and decided to walk the relatively short distance to work.
As she was walking, she passed a parked white car that started as she walked by. She noticed the car driving slowly behind her and had the suspicion she was being followed. She immediately alerted her mom.
“I work with my mother and at the time I sent her a voice note telling her I am being followed.
“She was in a meeting. She did not get the message. As I was walking, to make sure these people were really following me I walked down a street and ran a bit ahead. I then walked, I didn’t want them to see me running. The car was driving slowly behind me. I did not know it was a dead-end street,” she explains.
In her interview with IOL, she said that “she pretended to be looking for a house in the vicinity but had to turn around and pass the vehicle due to it being a dead-end street”.
“As I tried walking past the car, I saw two African men. The driver, whose face was covered, and a man in the back seat.
“The man in the back seat then said ‘get in’. I tried walking away but he grabbed me by my hoodie and dragged me into the car. My body was in the car but my feet were still outside.
“I had perfume in my hand. I started fighting. I don’t even know why I didn’t spray the perfume.
“He tried putting a cloth over my face, but I kept fighting,” she said.
Achmat recalled to IOL that she was just thinking about her children, aged three and nine months old, at that terrifying moment.
At that point, she started hitting the unknown man, but her continuous fighting just angered him and prompted him to pull a weapon.
“He then stabbed me with a knife or blade or something… it all happened so quick.
“A man then came to pull him off me and I just ran without looking back,” Achmat recounted.
She ran into a crowd of people working nearby and one of the men offered to help by taking her to work. After her horrifying ordeal, Achmat was too afraid to get into this man’s vehicle, but people assured her it was safe to do so.
“I got to work and I was bleeding. My mother got sick when she saw me,” she said.
Achmat could unfortunately not file charges, since she could not recall any details about the attackers or their vehicle. But Grassy Park Police Station Commander Colonel Dawood Laing “has urged her to file charges” and expressed that “no matter the incident, residents in the area needed to know they cannot be turned away from filing a complaint.”
“No matter how small, the person is encouraged to report the complaint to the police. Regardless of where it happened, they must go to their closest police station.
“This will also allow us to deploy more resources in the area and increase patrols as well as be on the lookout for any vehicles, and most importantly, to inform the community,” Laing reported to IOL.
Laing continued to offer safety tips to residents:
“We urge anyone who notices they are being followed to enter any property where they see people and ask for help.
“Carry a whistle with you and blow this whistle to draw attention.
“Especially women, we suggest that you walk in areas where there are lots of activities. People do not harm anyone where there’s a lot of movement,” he added.
Also read:
Two females went missing on the same day in Cape Town – Maria Pop
Picture: Unsplash