Diepsloot residents have no police station — hence they are sometimes forced to adopt a do-it-yourself approach to crime. If they want to report an incident, they either have to go to the Erasmia Police Station in Pretoria, which is 11km away, or call their local Community Policing Forum (CPF).

After the CPF is called in, the suspects are beaten “a little bit”.

A member of the Diepsloot CPF, who asked not to be named, told Metro that they were forced to take the law into their own hands.

“Sometimes we get there and find that someone has really stolen something. Sikhe sithi ukumshaya-shaya. (We beat them up a bit),” he said, adding that they did not assault suspects to the extent that they needed to be hospitalised.

This is a good thing, since Diepsloot has no hospital either.

Last week, Metro reported that Diepsloot, one of the fastest growing townships in Gauteng, with over 80000 residents, has no police station, fire station or hospital.

It also needs many more schools, clinics and crèches.

Last year, the Joburg council promised Diepsloot residents street lights, schools, homes and electricity, but very little has been done to deliver on those commitments. Even the streets have no names.

And on the crime front, the residents are adopting a do-it-yourself approach, said the CPF member.

“We are just teaching the thieves not to steal again. What do you do to a thief? You beat him up,” he said.

Last Sunday, a mob of angry Diepsloot residents did just that.

They assaulted two men suspected of committing a robbery the previous day. Pretoria police spokesman Sergeant Katlego Mogale said the men, both in their 20s, had to be hospitalised.

Resident Letho Letswalo said that to report a crime, her neighbours would have to pay R10 for a taxi trip to Erasmia or phone the police, who might show up several hours later because they too had transport problems.

“Sometimes they do respond fast but sometimes they would get there much later and somebody would be dead,” she said, adding that when the cops took too long the locals turned to the ama-comrade (their local CPF) to solve the problem.

Fellow resident Mpho Tsholo said getting the cops to Diepsloot was difficult, as directing them to a crime scene was virtually impossible given the lack of street names.

In the past Diepsloot was the scene of violent clashes between local residents and immigrants from neighbouring countries.

Police inspector Paul Ramaloko said that this week a row had broken out between immigrant spaza shop owners and their South African counterparts, who accused them of undercutting their prices and threatened to “close down their businesses one by one”.

“The foreign businessmen alerted the police before anything got out of hand,” he said.

Policemen from Pretoria have been placed on patrol in the area to prevent a “violent situation".

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