A Bourda Market vendor is now traumatised and scared for her life after she was beaten and robbed in her yard on Saturday night.
Sixty-year-old Basmattie Sookhai related to Stabroek News yesterday that she, along with her son, Mark, and two boys who stay with her at her Industry, East Coast Demerara home sell at the market every day and return home during the night. While it was supposed to be a normal Saturday night where they would go home and unload the van, count their earnings for the day and relax, it took a traumatic turn after two armed men stormed into their yard around 9 PM.
She explained that after they arrived home her son parked the van in front of the residence and went to the back of the yard to use the washroom. “I come out too and I put my bag down on a table in the yard and I went to wash off my foot and I left the two boys unpacking the van,” she said. A few minutes later, she said that she heard a commotion at the gate.
“One of the men rushed to one of them boys at the gate and point the gun to he head and ask he about the money but he seh he ain’t got no money and chase them but like he didn’t realise what was going on,” the teary-eyed woman said. She said that a little later, the man grabbed the boy, with the gun still at this head, and rushed into the yard where she was.
“He start shouting and demanding for money. He keep saying where the (expletive) money and gold at. Where the bag with the (expletive) money and the gold,” the woman said. The man then noticed the bag that Sookhai had placed on the table. “He took the bag, pulled out all my money I had in there and my apron too had money, then he put all of us on the ground and kept slapping me behind my head asking me for more money and gold,” she said.
Sookhai said that while the attack was going on her husband was upstairs looking at the television but she is glad he didn’t hear the commotion and open the door. She related that the men kept demanding the keys for the house from her and every time she refused they kept slapping her.
“They … just keep slapping me behind my head and I keep crying and crying and begging them not to do us anything serious,” she recalled.
Remembering that her son was still at the back, she said she started crying loudly and making noise in order to alert him. Eventually her son was made aware of what was going on but when he peeped out and the man noticed him another ran into the yard with a gun. At this point she related that her son ran back to where he had been, jumped over the fence and started yelling “thief! bandits!, thief! bandits!”
Sookhai added, “One of them stay back and watch we and one of them run to the gate and peep and then both of them run outside and fire two shots in the direction of where Mark was running.” The men ran in an eastern direction and jumped into a white Toyota 212 and escaped.
A few minutes after, all the neighbours were alerted and lent their assistance to Sookhai and her family. The police were summoned but they were unable to find anyone while combing the area and are still searching.
In addition to the money, she related that the two men escaped with two cellular phones. “I am still traumatised. It’s a horrible, horrible experience … I can’t work and do nothing. It feels like a nightmare and I just keep imagining these people all the time and I can’t even sleep. If it wasn’t for my son them I don’t know what would’ve happened, I really don’t know,” she said.
She said she learnt that the men had circled the area several times anticipating their arrival.
