Crime-fighter Hanif Loonat moving back to Gauteng to recharge

AFTER decades of activism 62-year-old Hanif Loonat is temporarily hanging up his crime-fighting gloves as he bids farewell to Cape Town.

Loonat, known to many in the Western Cape as a anti-crime activist, has led a life of service.

Loonat’s service record is impressive: from being a teacher in the 1980s to taking part in the formation of the community policing forums (CPF), exposing corruption and evening branching out from the ANC to run as an independent candidate during last year’s municipal election.

And like most political activists, his involvement can be traced to early experiences of land dispossession and discriminatory laws and practices.

Five years before the Soweto uprisings, Loonat's family house in Brentwood Park, Benoni, was bulldozed under apartheid’s Group Areas Act. They were forced to moved to Actonville, an area designated for people of Indian descent.

Loonat said he watched helpless as his father's decades-long hard work was ruined and a few hours later he retaliated.

“I burnt the old South African flag at school. That was my first involvement in politics and I never stopped since then,” Loonat said.

On the first anniversary of the Soweto uprisings, Loonat said he watched while his football mentor's son was shot.

“Eventually I joined the Benoni Students' Movement which was started by the politically active Cachalia brothers (Firoz and Azhar) and I was also part of the United Democratic Movement,” he said.

In 1980, shortly after Loonat married Capetonian Feroza, he left his hometown and moved to Cape Town where he found a job as a teacher. But that was short-lived.

“I was summoned to the department's head office. I thought I would be given good news of a promotion, but I was told to leave as I was politically influencing the learners. I decided to start my own business and opened supermarkets. I made some mistakes in business along the way and moved back to Gauteng,” he explained.

In 1994, Loonat said he was part of the ministerial task team that laid the groundwork for the formation of CPFs and put the policy and the Constitution together.

“So I've been involved in CPFs from the early formation, as well as in the sector policing policy.

While in Benoni, Loonat also joined the CPF as he vehemently opposed corruption.

In 2005 Loonat's family moved back to Cape Town and he became involved in “crime-busting” activities again. He joined the Lansdowne CPF and became its chairperson.

“I shared my knowledge and expertise and the Lansdowne police station won the first prize for best sector policing in the country, as a result,” he added.

But he also blew the whistle on the questionable low crime statistics at the time and an investigation was launched.

He was later elected to become the chairperson of the cluster CPFs for the crime and gang-ridden areas of Nyanga, Manenberg, Gugulethu, Athlone, Lansdowne and Hanover Park.

As the provincial chairperson of the Western Cape CPF board, Loonat said he was instrumental in the formation of close to 4 000 registered and trained Neighbourhood Watch members in Mitchells Plain alone – at a time when the area had only one police station.

“But I was regarded as a rebel by some people in authority after I raised concerns. I mobilised the Manenberg community against police corruption and lack of resources and this irked some. I was sacked by the CPF board.

“Some saw me as an ANC cadre and refused to acknowledge me as a crime activist. Even within the ANC I never shared sensitive information – I kept the boundaries clear. I was regarded at all levels as one who couldn't be controlled.”

Loonat said he's always been “vocal and radical” about community issues.

Among some of his highlights as a crime activist, he counts criminal cases that were brought to court.

“There was a cocaine bust in Knysna and the discovery of a cocaine field in Mucus Garvey near Philippi.

“But we also participated in police roadblocks and shebeen patrols,” he says.

Most recently, he called for a probe into allegations of fraud and corruption in the City’s housing department which led to a police raid and arrest of some officials.

“Corruption should not be tolerated at any level. That's been my driving force,” said Loonat.

He added that he extended his political awareness and activism to sports, where as an “ardent professional” football player, he only played in non-racial leagues and mobilised the youth into taking up sports.

But last year, he surprised many when he left his political home, the ANC, and contested the local government elections as an independent candidate.

He lost, and is now headed back to Gauteng, and where he plans to work in the background.

“I just want to take a break from activism for at least two years. My children are grown up and some have their own families. I want to reconnect with them,” Loonat said.