Suburban
DARING thieves last week stole electricity cables at the corner of Crowhill Road and Hogerty Hill after lulling security guards into complacency by pretending to be asking for fire to light cigarettes before attacking them.
Peter Tanyanyiwa
Suburban Reporter
The recent theft comes barely six months after another cable was stolen at the top of Hogerty Hill.
This time around the criminals actually breached the neighbourhood watch’s security barrier before accomplishing their mission and disappearing into the night.
The thieves pretended to be friendly as they said they wanted to light their cigarettes at the fire the neighbourhood watch guards had lighted to keep themselves warm during the night.
Suddenly, the thieves turned on the security guards and attacked them after tying them up. They then freely went uphill and cut the copper cables before fleeing the scene.
Hogerty Hill and Crowhill Road area neighbourhood watch point person Mr Fungai Muchemwa said about 10 thieves pounced on the security guards and stole the copper cables.
Narrating the incident, Mr Muchemwa said initially two thieves approached the guards under the guise of seeking to light their cigarettes before their accomplices numbering eight suddenly appeared and ganged up on the hapless security guards.
“Ten thieves pounced on us at the corner of Crowhill and Hogerty Hill the area where the transformer is located around midnight. Initially two of the thieves approached our guards and they asked for fire to light their cigarettes. The guards will be having their fire to keep themselves warm. So when they were taking them to the fire the eight other guys creeped up on them, attacked them and tied them up. The guards’ phones were taken and they were put in the guard room. The other two thieves actually stayed out manning the boom gate,” he said.
“Roughly 100 metres from where the guard room is that’s where the coper cable was which they wanted to steal. The bad thing is there has not been power for about three days. The eight guys began to cut the electricity cable, which stretches into residences. The thieves got into the yards of the two houses, following the copper cable line. They cut the cable from about 1am to 3am.”
Mr Muchemwa said that they suspect that the thieves might have used something to render dogs at the houses they jumped into helpless as the dogs are well known for being vicious and also bark incessantly when something goes wrong. But in this case the dogs hardly barked or reacted to the thieves’ movements that night.
“We suspect that the thieves use juju as the two houses they jumped into had very huge dogs. They initially barked a bit but they just calmed down so there is that suspicion. The last time again when we reported a copper cable theft at the top of Hogerty Hill it was the same story and we are getting worried now. Within a short space of time we have reported two thefts of copper wire under mysterious circumstances where the thieves are beating our systems that we have put in place,” said Mr Muchemwa.
When the thieves were done stealing the copper cable, they came back to the guard room and untied the security guards telling them that they should be grateful as they were escaping unharmed.
Communities were recently urged to help police and power utility ZESA Holdings to curb the rampant theft of electricity cables which has left several areas without power.
In some cases, residents have been forced to dip into their pockets to replace stolen cables and damaged transformers given the fact that ZESA Holdings and its subsidiaries are struggling to fund replacement of stolen or vandalised electricity infrastructure. Residents in several suburbs in Harare have been funding the installation of security screens to protect transformers.
The theft of electricity cables recently came up for discussion in Parliament with the Government appealing to communities to do their part in safeguarding electricity infrastructure.
Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi told Parliament that communities have a duty to help in protecting electricity infrastructure by reporting criminals to the police.
