Devi Sankaree Govender, the Carte Blanche journalist who was mugged on set in Bloemfontein on Wednesday.
Image: Carte Blanche.
Barely a week after some SABC crew members were mugged live in front of the camera, another journalist has also been robbed in Bloemfontein Central Business District on Wednesday morning, it has been reported.
Devi Sankaree Govender, who is a member of Carte Blanche was on assignment in the capital of the Free State on Wednesday at about nine in the morning when a man approached her from the back. She says she and her team had just finished the filming they had been doing next to the Free State Department of Health when she felt that a man was following her too closely. According to reporter Govender, it appears that the man had been watching them for some time. Govender says she was on her way back to the car when she felt his presence as he came up behind her. When she realised what was happening, she tried to scream, she says but the man apparently pushed his hands brutally into her windpipe then she stopped screaming and all other forms of resistance. The man then yanked off the necklace that Devi was wearing and strolled off as if he did not have a care in the world. On realizing what had just transpired, the cameraman started giving chase until Govender put a stop to it. This, she says, was in an attempt to protect the whole crew.
Devi Govender contends that it is worrying to note that muggers and robbers are targeting journalists that are out in the field as they believe that these are vulnerable. She added that it was the first time in her thirteen years at Carte Blanche that something like this had ever happened to her. She also confirmed that she had lost a necklace chain and a locket which were both presents from her husband when their son was born some thirteen years ago.
This mugging comes in the wake of another high profile mugging involving the crew of the South African Broadcasting Cooperation whose mugging by some foreign nationals was caught live on video. SABC editor, Vuyo Mvoko, was mugged on camera on Tuesday night last week while preparing to shoot a live crossing outside Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg. Four men of Zimbabwean origin are being held in connection with the mugging but their trial has been delayed because of waiting for interpreters.
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