'No excessive force during protest' - Cele warns police ahead of shutdown

"We should be at the level of minimum or completely eradicated sort of violence and any form of people getting injured but I don't have problem if you fill prisons," Cele said.

Cele was addressing law enforcement personnel in KwaMashu, north of Durban, on Saturday inspecting police operations ahead of the EFF's planned protest action.

"Those that will be here on the 20th, they will find us on the road and they won't find the space. By that time the space will be saturated. We saturate the roads, we saturate the key points, we saturate the air. You will see the birds that will be flying in the air to make sure that every thing is saturated," he added.

He said the men and women in blue will be out on the ground in their numbers.

"All the police are out of leave, they are here but we are working with other law enforcement agencies as you can see that there are people from metro, there are people from Road Traffic Inspectorate but there are community formations also. Here we are working with taxi associations with the NGOs and everybody. The only thing that we have emphasised to those organisations, especially taxi associations is that nobody has any right the law into their own hands."

Law enforcement said they are leaving nothing to chance and taking lessons from the 2021 July unrest as they plan for the shutdown.

Cele however urged his members to stay away from provocation after a circulated statement called on protestors to strike during the mass demonstration.

"That's a war statement. They said people must not use phones, people must not use social media but they must use person-to-person and the last word there was to attack. Well they did not explain, attack who? I would love that the law enforcement when they begin to investigate, they investigate that statement. That's a statement that might cause trouble and nobody should come back here, when you order attack, definitely there will have to be a counter attack."