Feroze Ghani, the minibus driver who was shot to his back on Saturday during a robbery, has been discharged from the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH).
Raphael Ghani, who is the man’s son and was also the conductor aboard the minibus at the time of the attack, yesterday said his father still has the bullet lodged in the region of his lungs. However, he said, he was discharged on Monday and ordered to return to the hospital on October 20th, when a decision may be made on removing the bullet.
The man said his father has since been experiencing terrible pain and is unable to move about as normal.
Ghani, 48, of Ruby, East Bank Essequibo, was shot just before midday on Saturday at Flour Mill Public Road, Eccles, East Bank Demerara, by two men who posed as passengers. They have not been apprehended.
The police, in a statement on the shooting, had said that about 11.45 am, two men, one of whom was armed with a gun, held up Ghani, his son, Raphael, 27, and passenger Dhanmattie Ramana. The two perpetrators, who had joined the vehicle at Parika and requested the driver to stop at Eccles, took away a total of $21,000 and escaped but not before shooting the driver.
Raphael had previously told Stabroek News that the minibus was fully loaded with passengers who were travelling from Parika to Georgetown. He recalled that as they were in the vicinity of Eccles, a man requested to stop at the Four Mill Road. The senior Ghani, however, stopped a corner away from the road, causing the passenger to become annoyed.
According to Raphael, the man subsequently demanded that the driver reverse the bus to Flour Mill road. “I ask he why he want that and when I turn around I see he had a gun in he hand,” he had recounted. “Reverse the f****** bus to Flour Mill Road,” he recalled the man saying, before a female passenger shouted out loud that the man was carrying a gun. This, Raphael had said, caused his father to panic as he attempted to drive the bus. The gunman then fired a shot at his seat and the bullet pierced it and struck him in the back.
