Four held in NA post office robbery

Four persons have been taken into custody following the $8.2M robbery in New Amsterdam early on Saturday during which the Postmaster of the Nigg Post Office was shot.

Sources said the men, including an official from the New Amsterdam Post Office, were held early yesterday morning.

Postmaster Kishore Sewlall, 39, suffered a gunshot wound to the pelvic area and was rushed to the New Amsterdam Hospital. He underwent emergency surgery with the aim of removing the bullet, but doctors were unable to do so.

Yesterday relatives who were at the hospital told Stabroek News that the man’s condition seemed to be improving and that he was no longer complaining so much about pain.

In the course of their daring robbery, the bandits threw Sewlall and the Postmaster of the New Amsterdam Post Office out of Sewlall’s car, HB 1024, at the corner of Republic Avenue and Alexander Street in New Amsterdam. The car has since been recovered at Vryheid, West Canje.

According to reports, Sewlall was transporting the Chief Postmaster of New Amsterdam Gangadhar Munesar, 51, to distribute the cash to the various post offices in East Berbice. The money was to be used to pay pensioners on Tuesday. The two men were alone in the car.

Stabroek News understands that the two postmasters had just left the New Amsterdam Post Office when the incident occurred. According to re-ports, they had asked for a security guard to escort them but none was available.

This newspaper learnt that the bandits, who were waiting at the head of the street, threw a bicycle in the path of the car, forcing it to stop. One of the bandits, who carried a gun tried to force Sewlall out of the car, while the other unarmed bandit pulled Munesar out.

Sewlall, a father of two sons aged 13 and 14 years old was apparently attempting to resist the bandit when he was shot.

Meanwhile, policemen scouring the area retrieved Sewlall’s car near the backdam at Vryheid. The money the two postmasters had been transporting, which had been stashed in a box in the trunk of the car, was gone.