Latchmin Sookraj, the victim of a robbery who taxi driver Omar Harper tried to aid moments before he was fatally stabbed on Saturday night, says that guilt is now consuming her as she believes that had she not called out to him for help, he would still be alive.
“I sorry I call for him. I really feelin’ guilty,” an emotional Sookraj told Stabroek News at her Fifth Street, Cummings Lodge, East Coast Demerara home yesterday. “I don’t care about the phone. I am sorry that he had to lose his life because of me… I don’t mean for it to happen this way,” she added, as she appealed for all those who saw what transpired to come forward.
The suspect in the robbery and murder, who was later found by Cummings Lodge residents, is in police custody and police have sought advice on charges.
The robbery occurred around 6.30 pm as Sookraj, her two young children and another relative were headed to their place of worship.
Her children, who are eight and six years old, did not witness the attack on the dark and lonely road as they were walking ahead of Sookraj when two bandits on bicycles confronted her on the road linking Third and Fourth streets.
Sookraj said that one of the two men rode directly into her path and attempted to hold her right hand, in which she had her BlackBerry smartphone. Realising that she was about to be robbed, she said, she threw the phone in front of her.
The man on the bicycle, she added, picked up the instrument and rode off into Third Street. His accomplice followed but not before placing an ice pick to Sookraj’s neck, telling her that “next time mustn’t do dat”.
However, as the bandit turned into the street, his bicycle chain slipped and it was at that point that Sookraj shouted for help and the nearby Harper responded. As man tried to get away, Harper got into his car and trailed him, she said.
A still-terrified Sookraj said that by the time she reached the end of Third Street, she saw Harper being fetched out and she was told that he had been stabbed. “He been talking and everything. He even ask fuh he phone,” she recalled as her eyes welled up with tears. She said that when she looked at him, she thought that his injury was minor due to the fact that there was not much blood. She later learnt that the instrument used in the stabbing, suspected to be a knife, damaged his pancreas, among other organs. From all indications, Harper was bleeding heavily internally.
“It shock me because he wasn’t bleeding much,” Sookraj said, recalling the news of the man’s death, which she received while she and others had returned to Cummings Lodge from the hospital to follow a tip on the whereabouts of one of the suspects.
Sookraj said that as the wounded Harper was being lifted into a vehicle to be taken to the hospital, he identified his killer. She said that Harper, who apparently predicted his death, told those who were around to tell his wife and daughter that he loved them. Harper’s wife and daughter, who reside overseas, arrived in Guyana yesterday morning.
Sookraj’s husband, Zahir Hamid, explained that following the stabbing, people started congregating on the University of Guyana access road. It was there that a cousin of the suspect was spotted acting in a suspicious manner and persons decided to hold on to him.
According to Hamid, it was in the face of threats that the man led him to the house on First Street, where the suspect in the robbery and stabbing was hiding out. He, along with many others in vehicles, surrounded the house, turning off their lights as they approached in keeping with their plan.
Hamid recalled that when they walked into the yard with the suspect’s cousin, all the lights in the building suddenly went off. From all indications, the suspect locked all the doors and windows.
At the same time, the couple added, numerous calls placed to the police were unfruitful as the lawmen said they were unable to go to the house since they had no transportation. The ranks ended up at Sixth Street, where the suspect lived and had to be later transported to First Street, where he had locked himself in the house.
There was a verbal confrontation between the police and the suspect’s family. However, it was only after persons started making attempts to kick down the door that it was opened. The suspect and his cousin were later arrested.
Sookraj said that at the police station on Sunday, the suspect kept begging her. The man lives a stone’s throw away from her house and she believes that he initially did not recognise who she was during the robbery.
Sookraj said that in the light of the experience, she is scared to walk in the community, even during daylight hours.
