Missing police constable found alive after being drugged and robbed

Police constable Boswabile Mildred Silowe, who was reported missing on Sunday, has been found alive with her hands and feet bound.

The 26-year-old disappeared after leaving her home in Boiketlo village in Bushbuckridge, using public transport to make her way to Lydenburg where she was stationed.

Silowe arrived at Bushbuckridge shopping centre where she was to have caught a second taxi to Lydenburg, but was apparently offered a lift by an unknown man and immediately informed her sister, police said.

Police spokesperson Brig Leonard Hlathi said she was reported missing by family after  calls to her went unanswered. Hlathi said Silowe was found in the Calcutta area next to a set of traffic lights on Monday evening.  

“She told police that she recalls being covered with a cloth on her face by one of the men in the car who had offered her a lift back to Lydenburg when she became unconscious.

“She also relayed that she later regained consciousness only to find she had been ditched in the bushes with her hands and feet tied with ropes and had been robbed of all her belongings. She then managed to roll to a road nearby where she was spotted by a passing ambulance driver,” said Hlathi.

Police arrived shortly afterwards and she was transported to hospital, treated and discharged.

An investigation is under way.