Brendon Govender was shot in Chatsworth
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BRENDON Govender, the Chatsworth man who was killed while returning from work on Thursday morning was a hero, said his colleagues.
Govender, 36, was returning home with a group of night shift workers when unknown men travelling in a bakkie without registration plates began shooting at the vehicle they were travelling in.
Govender was driving his colleague's Punko Pillay's microbus.
Pillay said he received a call early Thursday morning from one of the passengers who was frantic saying "come quickly they are shooting at us".
"He said they were at the Unit 9 offramp. Another passenger then called to say Crossmoor. I notified security and police as I made my way to the scene.
"I was told that on Higginson Highway a double cab bakkie with no plates had bumped into the microbus. Brendon continued driving and the bakkie followed them. He stopped a short distance away and was confronted by the passengers in the bakkie who began breaking the windows and shooting.
"Brendon continued driving for about 100 metres and the gunmen followed and continued shooting the back of the microbus. Two of the other passengers were shot. The microbus ended on an embankment. All the passengers managed to run into a bush. They were followed and the men continued shooting at them. It was only then that the other two realised that they had been shot. They said it happened so quickly," said Pillay.
He said he was shocked when he received the frantic call.
"The guys that survived say when they close their eyes they can hear the gunshots. They say Brendon died a hero as he saved them by continuing driving," he said.
Pillay said he usually drives but when he was off from work Govender would drive the rest of the colleagues to work in Pinetown.
"Brendon was loved and respected," said Pillay.
He said they were still baffled as to why they would shoot at them.
A relative of Govender, who did not want to be named, said the sad reality is that the family would never know why he was shot.
"He was the youngest of three children. Brendon lived for the day and he lived life to the fullest," he said.
Govender's funeral took place on Friday at the Stellawood Crematorium.
Police spokesperson, Colonel Robert Netshiunda, said police in Chatsworth have opened two cases of attempted murder and a case of murder following a shooting incident along the M1 Highway at the Crossmoor/Moorton offramp.
He said the driver of a motor vehicle which was bumped into followed the offending driver and there was a shooting where three people were shot and wounded, one fatally.
"The suspects who were traveling in a white double cab fled from the scene of the crime," said Netshiunda.