Two bandits beat, rob Better Hope shopkeeper

Two gun-toting bicycle bandits robbed and beat a 55-year-old female shopkeeper at Better Hope, East Coast Demerara around 10 am yesterday.

The village has been plagued by a number of robberies over the last couple months and yesterday Surujdai Singh who was running her shop alone suffered a ten-minute robbery ordeal during which the men grabbed a quantity of cash and cigarettes.

A neighbour said he was on his way to the shop to purchase a few items and when he was a stone’s throw away he heard the woman screaming and saw the two men, who looked very young, run out of the shop. “I see the two boys running and is when I hear the woman screaming then I realized that it was a robbery and so a taxi boy who see dem running too decided to trace them,” the man said. He said the men ran in the direction of the cane fields aback of the village but the taxi driver managed to catch one of them. Residents said the taxi driver, who is a licensed firearm holder, fired a warning shot in the air and he was able to nab one of the men.

“When he caught him [the bandit] he still had a cloth tied around his mouth and he had some cigarettes in his hand and the guy took him and put him in the car trunk because a lot of neighbours came out and if we didn’t put him there they would have killed him out here,” he added. Singh later identified the suspect.

Residents who expressed frustration at the number of robberies in their community said that most times the perpetrators are never caught and so yesterday when one was nabbed it made them happy.

When Stabroek News visited Singh’s home yesterday neighbours and relatives had gathered there. They said that the woman would usually be home alone during the week and would manage the shop which has been in operation for some 20 years.

According to them the two men entered the shop and enquired about cigarettes. While one was enquiring, however, the other went around the back entrance to the shop and held the woman at gunpoint.

In the attack the woman sustained injures to her face and a broken tooth. According to reports, they beat her up and she had to beg for her life because they wanted to kill her. They also had a cutlass and a knife.

The men left their bicycles at the head of the street, neighbours said, and walked to the shop.

Neighbours called the police who responded promptly.

The shopkeeper lives in the house with her daughter and son-in-law. It is the first time in the so years the shop has been in operation that such an incident has occurred.

The nabbed suspect was taken to Sparendaam Police Station while Singh was treated at the Georgetown Public Hospital. She later went to the station to make her report.

Neighbours said they hadn’t seen the men before in the village.

Police subsequently searched the cane fields but they didn’t find the other suspect who had fled in that area.