INLSA
Balaram Reddy. Picture: Supplied
Jealousy because of their success in business. This is what the family of a Kwazulu-Natal North Coast businessman believe led to his brutal killing on Thursday.
Tongaat bus operator Balaram Reddy was apparently attacked several times over the past few months before his enemies shot and killed him and his wife at their Tongaat home at about 2.30am on Thursday.
Police Colonel Jay Naicker said Reddy, 56, and his wife Maliga, 52, were killed and their son Nivashin, 27, was wounded.
They were asleep when three armed men entered the house and attacked them.
Reddy was shot in the mouth and lower abdomen, and Maliga in the left arm, ear and temple. Nivashin survived being shot in the lower back and being stabbed several times, and is in a stable condition in hospital.
Only Reddy’s daughter Prishini and her husband Rishal Rammanan, who were also in the house, survived unscathed.
Maliga Reddy. Picture:Supplied
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Another son, Marlin, believes the attackers clearly intended to kill his father.
Marlin said he and his father had arrived at home at 1am yesterday after closing up their shop at Frasers, outside Tongaat.
He dropped his dad off and then visited his girlfriend, who lives nearby. Just over an hour later he received a call, telling him to return home.
“They were clearly out to kill… Before this happened we were told that they wanted to kill my dad and one of his sons,” he said, adding that the killers appeared to have inside knowledge of the house and its occupants.
Marlin said his mom and dad had separate bedrooms, and the killers first went to his father’s bedroom.
His father fell to the floor next to his bed after being shot, and his mattress was then placed on him.
His mother was beaten on the head with a gun and then shot in the head.
“There was someone (involved) who knew what time we get home, where we sleep, what we have,” said Marlin.
He believed that someone wanted his father’s bus company, Flaming Rock, to stop operating in Tongaat or that they were jealous of his shop, which he had on a farm in Frasers.
“We’ll never stop the business because the point of them killing my dad was for him to stop his business,” said Marlin.
He said Reddy was hijacked at the shop two months ago, and two men had approached his father and shot at him last week, but he managed to escape.
Marlin said Reddy narrowly escaped injury when two men again shot at him as he left the shop on Monday.
A visibly shaken Rammanan recalled how the attackers entered his bedroom three times, holding a gun to his head and another against the abdomen of his pregnant wife.
“Please leave us; my wife is pregnant,” he begged several times, said Rammanan.
He said they lived in Phoenix, but moved in with the Reddys last week because Prishini was six months pregnant and they didn’t want her to be alone at home during the day.
Rammanan said the attackers repeatedly threatened to kill him and asked for his phone and money, and about a safe.
His phone had been charging in another room and they forced him to fetch it at gunpoint.
Police said a task team, under the command of Major-General Mjabuliswa Ngcobo, would be formed to investigate the case. – The Mercury
Email Wendy: wendy.jasson.da.cost@inl.co.za
