At the height of last July’s riots, calls were made on social media to burn down the Durban home of chief justice Raymond Zondo.
His state capture commission had secured an order to hold former president Jacob Zuma in contempt of court for refusing to testify before it and Zuma had been taken to Estcourt prison to serve what was supposed to be a 15-month sentence.
Hours later, a WhatsApp group called EThekwini Shutdown posted the details of “Raymond Zondo Address”, prompting a fiery response from members who said the house should “perish”.
But the house in question wasn’t Zondo’s nor had he ever lived there. The house, west of Durban, belonged to educator and businessman Farhad Hoosen-Chohan, 44, who lives there with his wife and 10-year-old daughter.
“We had some police officers come over to the property on two separate occasions during that time. They asked if anything was wrong at our home and said they had received reports that something had been happening at our home. This was before us knowing what the real issue was,” he said.
A confused Hoosen-Chohan began investigating.
“On July 12 I began seeing our home address in posts on social media, people were saying it belonged to Raymond Zondo and it must be attacked and burnt down. We have lived here for nine years, and from the research I have done this home never belonged to Zondo or the state.”
It was a traumatic experience, to have to go through everything we went through during that time - I wish that upon no-one.
— Farhad Hoosen-Chohan
He said his family tried everything to have the posts removed.
“We all reported the posts to Facebook and Twitter and said the information was wrong and the lives of my family were at risk. Every response from Facebook and Twitter came back saying they cannot remove the posts because they do not violate their code of conduct,” he said.
“My wife was frantic, but I said I would not let anyone come and destroy what we had worked so hard for, I would defend our property.”
A police officer was stationed outside and members of the neighbourhood watch were on high alert.
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But then Hoosen-Chohan had to leave his house and rush to his business in town after receiving word it was about to be attacked. He and his wife ran two computer training centres in a building on West Street.
“Our security company called and said things were getting hectic in town. In the middle of the night I took two of my staff members. We went in and pulled out all our servers where our data is stored as well as any documents we could gather. We had to navigate our way out of town because the situation was very volatile.”
Looters eventually entered the building and started a fire in the basement which spread to the second and third floor, where Hoosen-Chohan’s centres were.
“The building has been declared unsafe for use because the foundation and floors collapsed. We lost about R3m in equipment and income and up until today we haven’t fully recovered.”
His bad luck didn’t end there, however. During the floods in April, half of their garden collapsed in a mudslide and some of their neighbours were killed.
“I constantly have a conversation with my wife about whether we should leave, but where do you go? Our lives are here, we cannot just up and leave everything. My wife suffers from anxiety. Every time it rains, every time there are rumours that the looting may start again, anything small can trigger her,” he said.
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