– escape with over $250,000
A shop owner is nursing a chop wound to his head after he was attacked by gun-wielding bandits who posed as customers; the police subsequently arrested two men who are to be placed on an identification parade.
Mahamood Husain, 54, of N½ Lot X Surat Drive, Triumph, East Coast Demerara, from his hospital bed, said that he was feeling “really bad”. He sustained a fractured finger and received a chop behind his head in the Friday night incident. Husain’s face was swollen and blotchy and his right eye was swollen and black and blue when Stabroek News visited him in the hospital yesterday.
The bandits had repeatedly hit Husain in the face with their gun butt and the one who had the cutlass chopped him to the head.
Geeta, Husain’s wife, who was hit with the broadside of the cutlass as well, told this newspaper that she and her husbanded operate a shop downstairs while they reside upstairs. On Friday around 9 pm, Geeta said, she sold a young man a bottle of Guinness. Geeta said that the man paid $400 for the drink since he did not have a bottle with him.
She said she told him when he returned the bottle she will give him back the deposit on the bottle. Geeta pointed out that there were two men who were waiting out on the road. “He went away and come back in about 10 minutes to bring back the bottle,” Geeta said.
“I was in the washroom and he [Husain] went out to give the man he bottle deposit,” Geeta added. The shop had already closed by then and Husain went out to the gate to collect the bottle and give back the man his money.
Geeta assumes that while the one man at the gate distracted her husband the other two jumped over the fence of the Triumph Nursery School, which is located next door, into their yard, and hid waiting for her husband.
As Husain made his way back to the house, the two men in hiding pounced upon him. A swollen-faced Husain could not recall much of what happened but his wife said she heard him screaming and before she could hear what he was saying the men had entered the house.
She said that the two men and looked to be between the ages of 17 and 20. Both men had guns, Geeta said. One man had a revolver while the other had a “short-barrel, long-handle gun” and a cutlass.
The men demanded money, Geeta said and the one with the revolver placed the gun under her neck demanding jewellery. The men had already cleaned the shop’s register of the day’s earnings which Geeta said amounted to $10,000.
Geeta said she moved the gun away telling him that she had nothing more and the bandit then opened the gun to show her the bullets inside. Meanwhile, the other bandit went upstairs and raided their home. According to Geeta, the men stole more cash, a digital camera, DVD player and a Motorola cell phone.
The couple however commended the police for their very swift response. Geeta said the officers responded within five minutes of her calling the Beterverwagting Police Station and “did a professional job”.
The couple has been living in the area for most of their lives and Geeta said that up until Friday night their shop had never been robbed. The couple live alone.
Meanwhile, three men fitting the description of the bandits who attacked the Husains were held by police in Plaisance later that Friday night. The men however did not have any of the items which were stolen from the Husains. According to the police, the men stole a total of $250,000 in cash from the couple including a DVD player and a cell phone.
The men are to be placed on an identification parade.
