Vendor battered by man of unsound mind at Vreed-en-Hoop

A man said to be of unsound mind attacked and beat a Vreed-en-Hoop vendor last Saturday, leaving him with injuries about his body and the attacker continues to roam as police have refused to attempt an arrest.

Samuel Seeraj, 21, who works as a vendor at Vreed-en-Hoop junction, told Stabroek News that he sustained injuries to his left hand, shoulder and neck after he was suddenly attacked and lashed with a board.

“Me deh sit down by the stand under the umbrella and the man come just soh and fire one lash,” Seeraj said, adding that had he not instinctively put his hands up, he could have been hit in his head and might have been a dead man.

Samuel Seeraj
Samuel Seeraj

The injured man said he had been threatened by the same man a week prior to the attack, while other vendors and persons in the area had been attacked previously.

Seeraj said that after the attack he reported the matter to the Vreed-en-Hoop Police Station and he was told by the ranks who took his statement that they could not do anything since the “man is mad.”

“Just soh me coulda get meh dead and them coulda seh a mad man,” Seeraj lamented, as he stressed that many persons in the vicinity can testify of the man’s actions which at times send persons running, owing to the sudden outburst of violence.

Meanwhile, the injured man who is the sole breadwinner for his wife and three-month-old child said that he was being forced to return to work in tremendous discomfort. The injury to his hand has severed one of his veins and he is still fearful of having another encounter with the attacker who lives at a place called the Jetty in Vreed-en-Hoop.

Recently, security guard James Ramlochan, 29, of New Amsterdam, Berbice had his face bashed in by a vagrant after he refused to share his food with the man.

Ramlochan who is also disabled, had been admitted to the Georgetown Public Hospital and was scheduled to undergo surgery for the injuries he sustained.

When Stabroek News visited Ramlochan in the hospital his relatives said he had sustained severe injuries to his head, face and eye. Relatives had also stated that the injuries the man sustained were beyond external; his skull was fractured in two places, his jaw broken in three different places and he had lost some of his teeth.