Pick n Pay has denied claims that two women were held in the cold storage room of its Witbank store earlier this month. The incident is reported to have taken place earlier in September, and it is believed the women were kept in the cold storage room for nearly four hours before being taken to the police station.

Here, their fingerprints were taken before they were discharged, and no case was opened.

Since then, one woman has died, and another was treated in hospital before being discharged. The woman who died is believed to have suffered from pneumonia. Pick n Pay says they were shoplifters.

The retail giant have also summed the incident up to “fake news”.

“We’d like to address the false news circulating regarding detainment of two women at our Witbank store on September 1. After being identified as shoplifters, they were taken to an office upstairs until the SAPS arrived, and both women left the store in police custody that same evening. They were treated respectfully and at no point were they harmed or placed in or anywhere near cold storage, all of which video security footage has shown. The terrible accusations circulating are completely untrue,” they said in a statement.

Picture: Twitter

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Lucinda is a hard news writer who occasionally dabbles in lifestyle writing, and recent journalism graduate. She is a proud intersectional feminist, and is passionate about actively creating a world which is free of discrimination and inequality.