Mo Khan's Outlet!: My first taste of crime in South Africa...

So it's been about six months since we moved back to South Africa and 3 months in our current house, and last weekend we experienced our first encounter with crime. It could've been much worse considering I've not yet sorted home and contents insurance out, so by the Grace of God, we got off easy in the grand scheme of South African crime...

We left home (Johannesburg) in a hurry on Friday afternoon (4th November) to drive up to Pietermaritzbug (6 hour journey) to spend Eid-ul-Adha, the festival of Sacrifice with family. It'd been 15 odd years since I last took part in Qurbani (the slaughtering of a sheep/lamb/cow) and I was going to slaughter an animal for the first time in my life. My kids have never witnessed such a thing before, very difficult to do practise this in UK...so we were all excited.

We had a wonderful Eid, returned home on Monday evening around 5PM. Being tired after the long journey, I didn't quite take notice of all the light entering the dining room and lounge. I'd deactivated the alarm on entry and getting the bags in, when I noticed the strange brightness coming in from the other room. I open the door, and to my amazement saw the dining room door wide open, the glass shattered and the outside gate wide open with the keys left hanging - we'd been burgled!

I quickly look around the house, it seemed the burglars only touched the lounge and dining room, not even the computer room (I wouldn't be typing this if they had) - and they got away with my PlayStation gear and wireless keyboard. The TV unit was shaken up a bit, but apart from that everything seemed in order - how odd, since the computer desk is in the lounge directly opposite the TV, I had my sat nav, photo frame and gadgets lying in plain sight...The only thing I could think of was the alarm had scared them away.

So I called the landlord to report the incident, then my alarm security company, who then alerted the police. I spent all of Sunday evening walking through the scene, testing the alarm, holding the security company to account, even doubting myself whether I actually activated the security system before leaving...Spent the night at my brother's place, next morning the so-called forensics team "fingerprint" experts came and went in like 10 minutes, I had to show them where to lift fingerprints off. Then the inspector came over to have a chat, he was equally baffled and blamed the security company. Spent the rest of Tuesday fighting with the security company and had the door fixed...

This morning the technician from the security company came over to download the event buffer from the alarm system. They were right, I was wrong. Actually the alarm was activated, but there were no reported incidents between Friday and Monday. I then tested some theories out and uncovered some serious loopholes with the system. If you enter the house, and crawl on all fours from the point of entry to the TV room/lounge, the sensors will not pick you up...so that's how they did it. Now I need to get more sensors installed, more panic buttons and possibly a few more burglar gates and doors...welcome to South Africa!!

What's really scary though is that why hadn't they cleaned me out?? Why take only the PlayStation gear?? Why not come again and again?? The house was available the entire weekend - we have no idea when it could have happened. The neighbours didn't hear or see anything unusual...

Like I said, it could've been worse. Houses are ransacked whilst people are fast asleep in their beds. Better to have it happen whilst you're not at home, because you could lose your life...

So on the crime front, UK 1, SA 0. But such petty crime is also rampant in UK, it could happen to anyone...In Islam, we believe that sometimes these small troubles happen in order to prevent or save you from a bigger calamity, that events are interconnected, and God has His plans and reasoning...We also have a saying to "Trust in God, but tie your camel!". In my rush to beat the traffic on Friday I didn't take the security precautions I usually take of taking all my keys with me, closing all the curtains, and leaving the property reciting verses of protection from the Quran...I also haven't sorted home insurance out...

Here's some pics of the incident: