Timol's death recalled

03 August 2015 - 09:25 By SHAUN SMILLIE

Imtiaz Cajee has built a reconstruction of a roadblock of 40 years ago. It is made from Lego blocks and includes buildings that once lined Fuel Street, in Coronationville, Johannesburg.There is a model of the yellow Anglia, the car his uncle Ahmed Timol was driving when he was arrested by apartheid-era police at the roadblock.For Cajee, the roadblock is one of the great mysteries surrounding his uncle's death."There was an order for his arrest; why not go to his flat? Was that roadblock set up specifically to trap Ahmed?" asks Cajee.The arrest at the roadblock was on October 22,1971. Five days later, Timol was dead after "falling" from the 10th floor of John Vorster Square police station.The security police claimed it was suicide. It was widely suspected that he had been tortured.For the past two decades Cajee has been by trying to piece together the last five days of his uncle's life.Cajee said that his uncle. a member of the Communist Party of S A , had returned from London three years earlier and had been involved in distributing banned literature, which the security police claimed they found in the boot of his car.There was an inquest but even after its conclusion Timol's death remained a mystery.Cajee has a theory as to why Timol was so brutally killed. It had to do with Ronnie Kasrils and his "bucket bomb" campaign.Cajee explained that, when Timol was captured, activists were flying into South Africa from London and planting bucket bombs, which they exploded on top of buildings.The explosions were intended to release propaganda pamphlets that would flutter down onto the streets."The security branch could not put a finger on who was doing this and they were under pressure to find out," said Cajee.The police linked the pamphlets Timol had in his possession to the bombs and, after his arrest, Cajee thinks the police's torture sessions got out of control and they had to dispose of his body.Cajee, author of Timol: A Quest for Justice, will soon write a second book about Timol examining the mystery around his death.But, in the meantime, there is an exhibition displaying the Lego roadblock that Cajee's daughters helped to make.The exhibition on Timol's life opened at the Apartheid Museum, Johannesburg, at the weekend...

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