Armed gang shoots market vendor at No. 58 Village, beats wife

-escapes with cash and jewellery

Four armed men last evening stormed into the No. 58 Village, Corentyne home of market vendors Mohabir Dhanraj and his wife, shooting the man in his leg and beating the woman before escaping with cash and jewellery.

Relating the incident to this newspaper, Farida Dhanraj said she and her husband Mohabir Dhanraj called ‘Bozo’ were sitting in the house when four men burst into the yard sometime around 19:00 hours.

She said that the one of the men was armed with a gun while the others had cutlasses and a Rambo knife. The men escaped after seizing a quantity of jewellery and cash but not before shooting the husband in his left thigh.

Mohabir Dhanraj in hospital last night

“They take me and carry me in the kitchen. They took two chains, three finger rings and four bangles. They called for money and they started chopping the chest of drawers. We had some money in there and they took it,” the distraught woman said.

She said that they beat her up and put a knife to her throat, threatening to kill her. She said that she was hit on the head causing her to require stitches. In addition to this, she said that her hands and shoulders were black and blue from the beating she endured at the hands of the men.

Her husband was shot in the left thigh while in the front yard, causing him to be hospitalised at the New Amsterdam Hospital. She said only she and her husband were at home at the time of the incident.

She said that because the neighbours heard gunshots, they did not come out until the ordeal was over. She described the gun as being short with a double barrel. The bandits were firing shots in the air.

The woman said that the ordeal lasted between 15 and 20 minutes after which the neighbours called the Police who came and took statements from the victims.

At the end of the ordeal, neighbours took the wounded man to the Skeldon Hospital and then he was transferred by ambulance to the New Amsterdam Hospital where he was being treated up to press time last night.