Five armed men, during the wee hours of yesterday morning, pounced on a Bloomfield Village, Corentyne family and robbed them of cash and jewellery, and took away surveillance camera footage before escaping.
During the attack, the bandits badly assaulted the owner of the house, Asif Owal. He had begged them not to harm his wife or three-year-old child and said he “would take all.”
Owal, 25, of Lot 379 Bloomfield Village, Corentyne related that around 3:30 am yesterday, his wife woke him and alerted him that she heard someone walking on their shed. “I have a torchlight and torch in the hall and I shout out ‘thief’ because I thought was cat, but after I done shout I heard banging on the window,” he said.
Owal, who is the clerk in charge of the Mibicuri Hospital, said that he then told his wife not to panic “because we couldn’t do anything at that time.”
He said the first bandit, who entered the house through the window, removed the bar on their door to allow the other bandits to enter the house. “He jump in the room and pointing the gun to me from on top,” the man recounted. According to Owal, the perpetrator, while pointing the gun towards his head, demanded that he open the door, which the others were banging as if to “break down” the door.
“I tell he I can’t open the door if they banging and he tell them stop and as soon as I open the door, about five men run in and they grabble my wife and come to me and say them want the money and ‘where is the disc?’ so I ask them ‘what disc’ and them say for the camera,” he said.
Owal said he told the men that the DVR for the camera was located downstairs as he tightly held on to his son and begged the bandits not to hurt the child. “I tell them na take he away from me or me away from he; that I gone give y’all whatever we get; that don’t hurt me or me son or me wife,” the man recounted.
They bandits proceeded downstairs where Owal showed them where the DVR was located. The bandits then began to beat him with the gun, aiming lashes to his head and about his body. He said they also stamped on his back and shoulders. “They start hitting me more after that. I tell them hit me but don’t hit me son,” he said.
At the same time, he said, his wife handed over the cash and other valuables they had in the house to the perpetrators in hopes that they would leave her husband alone.
The bandits escaped with $30,000 in cash, two cellphones, one silver wedding ring, one silver chain, two pairs of gold earrings, one gold chain, one gold bangle and one gold wedding ring. They also took Owal’s CCTV’s hard-drive and DVR.
Owal told Stabroek News that he has four cameras, which are located outside of his house, as part of a security system. He said it seemed as though the bandits “push it up (a camera)” before launching their attack since it was facing a different direction after the robbery.
The police have launched an investigation but no arrest had been made as of yesterday afternoon.
