Three gunned down in mistaken identity

MASERU – THEY came for him twice. And during the two attacks, they shot and killed three of his relatives thinking they had got their man.

During that whole ordeal, Litumeliso Toi, a Seakhi famo musician popularly known as Makhotsa, somehow survived.

On April 13, the police say, his brother Leboneng Toi arrived home from South Africa where he was working in the mines and noticed that the family cattle had been let loose at night.

The family says he put his luggage down and went to drive back the cattle into the enclosure. While busy driving the cattle into the kraal, the assailants who were hiding in the cover of darkness shot him, thinking they were killing Litumeliso.

“We suspect their target was Makhotsa (the singer),” a family member said.

Last Friday night, two other relatives who had come to attend the night vigil for Leboneng Toi were also gunned down just after they arrived at the venue of mourning.

Senior Superintendent Mpiti Mopeli said it is suspected that the killers were still hunting the musician when they murdered the two cousins.

He said after the two men had put their luggage in the house and left to buy airtime at a nearby shop in their village of Makeneng in Likhoele Mafeteng, they were sprayed with bullets.

The attackers then fled.

Police in Mafeteng say they have identified the suspects as famo music artists in the district who had skipped the country for South Africa.

“Leboneng Toi was not connected to the famo music differences rocking the country,” a family member said.

Police sources in the district said their preliminary investigations have shown that Litumeliso is in a fight with another faction of Seakhi.

Litumeliso who is being hunted day in and day out is reported to have told his rivals in music lyrics that they should lay off their hands from his brother because he was not connected to famo differences.

The suspects are said to be Litumeliso’s distant cousins who have joined a rival famo gang.

On the night that the two brothers were killed, two men are said to have come to the night vigil pretending to be mourners.

Then they descended on the two brothers with an avalanche of bullets hoping that one of them was Litumeliso.

Still, they missed their target and killed the innocent souls.

After being shot, the men were rushed to Scott Hospital in Morija, some 46 kilometres from the scene of the crime.

They were confirmed dead upon their arrival.

Meanwhile, in Matelile Ha-Koepe in the same district, two unknown gun-toting men sprayed a shack with bullets but no one died.

Within a few minutes a business woman was gunned down in the neighbouring village of Ha-’Maliepetsane.

Mafeteng police said they have arrested two men who are suspected to have killed the businesswoman in Ha-’Maliepetsane.

The suspects appeared in court this week and were charged with murder.

Army spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Sakeng Lekola, said a battalion was dispatched to Matelile to search for perpetrators behind the rampant killings.

He said they visited the villages of Ha-Koepe and Ha-Ngoan’a Khare where they were able to confiscate four illegal firearms.

The army confiscated two 9mms, 7.65mm and .38 pistols from four people.

The ’Maliepetsane MP, Lehlohonolo Hlapisi, said he had moved a motion in parliament seeking a review of the Internal Security Act.

“This Act was enacted in 1966 and it is too old and has to be reviewed,” Hlapisi said.

“We need a law that will help control these murders,” Hlapisi said, adding that the provision of bail for murderers should be reviewed.

Hlapisi, a Democratic Congress (DC) MP, said they had engaged security agencies and church leaders to help combat the killings but all efforts have failed.

“The major cause of the killings is the famo gang groups which are bringing the country into disrepute and lawlessness.”

Hlapisi said Basotho gangsters in South Africa send money to their families by hand, trusting that their fellow gangsters would deliver it.

When they do not deliver the money to their families, the punishment is death.

“They usually hunt those who have used their money,” Hlapisi said. “If they don’t find them at home, they kill their family members,” he said.

Majara Molupe