DA leader Mmusi Maimane attempted to drag Police Minister Fikile Mbalula following an article by Times Live about the police having wrongfully arrested a group of men said to have been responsible for the so-called Cape Town massacre.
According to Times Live, the Western Cape police arrested eight men -- and later two more -- near the Huguenot Tunnel on the N1 national road on Friday last week. Officers tied their hands behind their backs with cable ties and made the men lie face down on the road.
Mbalula then showed up, "interrogated" the men and went all out in boasting about the arrest, calling it a "midnight criminal space shake up [sic]" and tweeting pictures of the suspects lying on the ground to his one million Twitter followers.
But it turns out that the detainees did nothing wrong and had to be released, leading to vigorous ridiculing of the police and Mbalula.
Maimane commented that Mbalula was more "focused on being famous than [on] doing his job. It's outrageous, and I will join [legal] action against him for this."
But Mbalula did not take this lying down and sent a number of tweets to Maimane, whom he referred to as "Ntate Muruti" (priest).
I Challenge @MmusiMaimane
I'm in Hanover Park, Phillipi Cape Town at Operations to fight crime now
Join me here and let's see real wok https://t.co/BrHuLJLwmJ
— RSA Police Minister (@MbalulaFikile) October 13, 2017