Free State police are investigating the murder of a couple in their sixties who were found dead on a farm near Boshof at the weekend.
Sergeant Wendy Nkabi said the police were still piecing together information, but they do know that two people, who are not known to farmworkers, were spotted on the property on Friday before the murder.
Netwerk24 identified the couple found dead on Saturday as Sakkie van der Berg, 67, and his wife Ina, 62.
Nkabi said Van der Berg was giving an employee a lift from the farm Bloubos to Boshof and as they were leaving the farm, he asked the employee about two apparent strangers walking on the farm.
The employee did not know who they were either.
Van der Berg returned home alone, and the police surmised the attack started at two large gates close to the farmhouse.
"They found the two deceased in the kitchen," said Nkabi, adding the alarm was raised when Van der Berg did not keep to his usual routine.
"It seems like every morning, he goes to pick someone up," she said.
The couple was found tied up inside the farmhouse by a neighbouring farmer, IOL reported.
The Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus) said it had officially asked the Free State's MEC for police, roads and transport, Sam Mashinini, to discuss the possibility of establishing a rural safety unit in the province, with Police Minister Bheki Cele.
"If there had been proactive policing in the district, both these murders could have been prevented," said FF Plus MPL in the Free State Armand Cloete. "The MEC and minister cannot keep ignoring farm attacks."
Cloete said the more than 60 farm murders and 217 farm attacks that have taken place in South Africa since the beginning of 2019 were "proof that farms are being targeted".
SOURCE: NEWS24
