Businessman robbed, shot; gun taken

A businessman was robbed and shot by two bandits who took away jewellery, his gun and an undisclosed sum of cash as he left his store at Lombard and Haral streets at about 2 pm yesterday.

Albert Ramkarran, 56, of Herstelling, East Bank Demerara was up to last evening undergoing surgery at the Georgetown Public Hospital. The owner of A & C Ramkarran General Merchants was shot just above his left knee, his wife Camille Ramkarran said.

She recounted that her husband was leaving the business place around 2 pm yesterday and was about to enter his car when he was attacked by the two men who had parked their car in front of the Gumdac Music Centre and were apparently waiting on him to leave. “They shot him on he foot and tell he don’t move,” Camille said.

She said that her husband was about to draw his gun. “The shot broke his bone and went through,” she said. The bandits relieved Ramkarran of a gold chain and a gold band as well as the gun. “They take his weapon away. They gone with his weapon and the jewellery and he left lying on the ground until somebody come and put him in the vehicle and drove him to the hospital,” the woman recounted.

She said that her husband usually left with the day’s earnings and this was taken too. It was only on Friday that the family returned from a two-week vacation in Florida and only yesterday that the store was opened since. This is the first time such an incident had happened to them, Camille said. Her husband normally goes alone to the store on Saturday, she explained.

The woman said that at the hospital, Ramkarran was crying out for pain and had also lost feeling in the injured foot. Up to last evening, relatives had not spoken to police though the lawmen had visited the scene.