Bandits shoot man in car wash stick-up

A man was shot by bandits who robbed him as he sat at a car wash at Le Ressouvenir, East Coast Demerara yesterday morning.

Chandradat Nandalall, 38, of Vryheid’s Lust, East Coast Demerara is now in stable condition and recovering after an emergency surgery that was done at a private hospital.

Police in a press release said that Nandalall was attacked and robbed by two men, one of whom was armed with a handgun.

“Investigations revealed that [Nandalall] was sitting on a bench at a car wash at Le Ressouvenir, Railway Embankment when the men rode up on a motorcycle and demanded that he handed over his jewellery that he was wearing at the time. He hesitated and the pillion rider shot him to his left arm and relieved him of his jewellery and they escaped,” police said in a statement.

In addition to his jewellery, the robbers also took two cell phones and cash from Nandalall.

Speaking to Stabroek News, the operators of the car wash said the men came to the business, calmly put the motorcycle on its side stand and approached Nandalall, who was seated on a bench to the side of the wash area.

“The men come in, tek them time, stand the bike and come to [Nandalall] and demanded his jewellery. When he hesitate one of them shot him and then fire a shot at my son,” the witness said.

“They took a fat gold chain, [finger] rings, two cell phones and cash he had in his pocket,” the eyewitness recounted. “They cuss up the man… he beg them not to kill him but they still shot him,” she added.

The woman described the damage done to the man’s left arm as a result of the gunshot. “The man hand buss up. He bar the shot with his hand. A bullet also gone in his left side,” she said.

She is of the view that the police could have caught the bandits had they arrived promptly on the scene since the bandits had remained there for between seven and ten minutes.

Speaking to Stabroek News, a sister of Nandalall said that while the surgery went well and her brother is recovering, it is too early to say the extent to which he will regain full use of his left arm because of ligament and tissue damage.

“He went in for surgery at 16:05 hrs and came out after 18:00 hrs.

He is out of danger. He is responding to people. He had two bullets: one to the arm and the other to the left [abdomen].

There was no internal damage but the tissue in the hand really was damaged,” the man’s sister said.