A SIMMERING row over corruption claims erupted in gunfire, torching and hand-to- hand fighting in Queenstown’s Mlungisi township on Wednesday.
Police intervened twice to restore order after a group apparently aligned to the South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) disrupted an ANC meeting.
Ayanda Nuku, the ANC’s Lukhanji sub-region chairman, said party members were trapped in the Skweyiya Community hall as people claiming to be Sanco members bombarded the building with stones and fired guns outside for close to an hour, burnt tyres and barricaded the road with rocks.
By the time police returned for a second time , seven cars belonging to ANC members had bullet damage, smashed windows or were burned and nearly all the windows in the hall were destroyed.
Thembile Sgqolana, a reporter for the Daily Dispatch’s sister paper The Rep, said he was injured in the leg by a stone and later hit in the chest by a rubber bullet .
Police spokesperson Lieutenant Pumzile Makaula confirmed officers were called to manage the incident, but denied rubber bullets were fired.
She said a case of public violence was being investigated and that another incident on Thursday, which may have been linked, was also being probed.
“The latest we’ve had is that people tried to attack an ANC councillor’s house in the morning. It’s not yet clear if the incidents are related, we are investigating,” she said.
The violence was the latest twist in a long- running dispute over the ANC’s recall earlier this year of executive mayor Mncedisi Nontsele.
Sanco and Cosatu have called for his return, saying he was dismissed to block a corruption probe. Fanelwa Ngqola, the local Cosatu secretary, told The Rep in January Nontsele had been removed to hamper the prosecution of four local government officials accused of stealing R7-million from the council in April 2010.
Mayhem over ANC mayors
Police intervened twice to restore order after a group apparently aligned to the South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) disrupted an ANC meeting.
Ayanda Nuku, the ANC’s Lukhanji sub-region chairman, said party members were trapped in the Skweyiya Community hall as people claiming to be Sanco members bombarded the building with stones and fired guns outside for close to an hour, burnt tyres and barricaded the road with rocks.
By the time police returned for a second time , seven cars belonging to ANC members had bullet damage, smashed windows or were burned and nearly all the windows in the hall were destroyed.
Thembile Sgqolana, a reporter for the Daily Dispatch’s sister paper The Rep, said he was injured in the leg by a stone and later hit in the chest by a rubber bullet .
Police spokesperson Lieutenant Pumzile Makaula confirmed officers were called to manage the incident, but denied rubber bullets were fired.
She said a case of public violence was being investigated and that another incident on Thursday, which may have been linked, was also being probed.
“The latest we’ve had is that people tried to attack an ANC councillor’s house in the morning. It’s not yet clear if the incidents are related, we are investigating,” she said.
The violence was the latest twist in a long- running dispute over the ANC’s recall earlier this year of executive mayor Mncedisi Nontsele.
Sanco and Cosatu have called for his return, saying he was dismissed to block a corruption probe. Fanelwa Ngqola, the local Cosatu secretary, told The Rep in January Nontsele had been removed to hamper the prosecution of four local government officials accused of stealing R7-million from the council in April 2010.
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