the 51-year-old Gujarati entrepreneur was at his business in an unidentified district in Lesotho
KABELO MASOABI
July 4, 2019 3 min read
MASERU - Lesotho business man of Indian descent Younus Vohra was allegedly shot dead by unidentified persons on June 20 at his business in Lesotho, India based Times News Network (TNN) has reported.
According to the news article filed on TNN’s website on June 29, the 51-year-old Gujarati entrepreneur was at his business in an unidentified district in Lesotho when four unidentified persons stomped in and assaulted him before one of them shot him dead. The report alleges that according to Vohra’s son Salman, the assailants looted the shop and broke the CCTV cameras. It shows that Salman said his father was waiting for a friend to pick him up when the assailants broke into the shop. "I last spoke to my father on June 17 and everything seemed normal. We recently became parents to a baby girl and my father promised to come and visit us in about a year's time," Salman was quoted as saying.
The report further shows that the Vohra family was originally from Thasra before migrating to Ahmedabad eight years ago. Thasra is located about 70 kilometres southwest of Ahmedabad. Ahmedabad is situated about 926 kilometre from the Indian capital of New Delhi. The news report shows that the deceased worked at a super-market in Ahmedabad before he left for South Africa nine years ago, where he opened his own business partnering with a friend.
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“After moving to SA, he visited his family twice in Ahmedabad. The last time he visited was ten months ago, for his son's wedding,” the report also states. "As nobody from the family could immediately travel to SA, his last rites were carried out by members of the Indian community in Lesotho. The sad news of my father's death has shaken us completely and we are yet to come to terms with the fact that he is no more," Salman was further quoted as saying. The report shows Salman added that there are lot of procedural hurdles in getting the body to India, hence they gave permission for his burial in SA. Salman reportedly lives in Jamalpur, India with his mother, wife and 20-month old daughter.
In a twist turn of events, Lesotho police yesterday showed they have so far not received any report of a recently murdered Indian businessman in the country. After consulting with colleagues for the past two days, police spokesperson Superintendent Mpiti Mopeli confirmed to Metro that such a report had not reached his desk. Supt Mopeli was, however, taken aback that a murder that allegedly occurred on his doorstep made headlines in international news without the knowledge of the Lesotho Mounted Police Service (LMPS).
“I found nothing relating to a report of this nature, but it requires a follow up because the story on the website doesn’t disclose the place and time of the murder, its details are sketchy. “If what the story claims is true, then whoever moved the body across border to RSA without notifying relevant authorities has committed a crime,” Mopeli said. The office of the Consulate of India in Maseru also denied any knowledge of the alleged murder, referring Metro to the president of the Indian Association of Lesotho (IAL) Biju Abrahm Korah who also professed ignorance to the story that has already been published in five different international news outlets this week.
Korah who is also a business owner in Lesotho said he was in a meeting and promised to get back to this reporter after reading the story on Indian website, but he never called back. Further attempts to contact him were unsuccessful as his phone rung unanswered.
