Taxi torched at Sheet Anchor

The burnt shell that remains of Chandradatt Mohabir’s car after the arson attack. Inset is Mohabir
The burnt shell that remains of Chandradatt Mohabir’s car after the arson attack. Inset is Mohabir

A part-time Sheet Anchor, East Canje Berbice hire car driver saw his car go up in flames in a mysterious arson attack around midnight on Friday.

The white fielder wagon belonging to Chandradatt Mohabir, 26, of Sheet Anchor Village, East Canje, Berbice, was parked on his bridge along the public road at the time of the attack, which was carried out by an unknown person dressed in a black hooded shirt.

Mohabir yesterday explained that he left his car parked on his bridge, located near the Canje Turn, as per normal prior to the midnight attack. “I hear a sound go bam and when I run out my room and come straight on the veranda, I see me car catch a fire and I hear somebody walking on the step,” the man related.

A fearful Mohabir then contacted several friends and it was only until they arrived at the location that he exited his house, “But when they come and I come out the car been done catch a fire too far,” he related.

According to Mohabir, he has since viewed footage from a neighbour’s CCTV camera and he saw the perpetrator armed with a steel rod breaking his car’s rear windscreen before dousing the interior with an incendiary, suspected to have been gasoline.

“It show a guy come with a jar and a steel rod and whilst he walk coming he stop behind the post there and wait ’til them vehicle pass and then he light something on the ground and when he done he tek the steel rod and bus the back windscreen. I see he pick up then jar and start shy gasoline in the car all over, then the pick up the thing he light on the ground and shy it in the car and the car catch a fire,” the man recounted.

Singh noted that the perpetrator was dressed with a black hooded shirt and as a result he was not able to see the person’s face in the footage or when he peeped from his veranda.

Mohabir purchased the $2.7 million car, HB 2807, about eight months ago and he sometimes uses it to do taxi work.

Mohabir was identified as a person who regularly transported Dave Singh, who is accused of unlawfully killing businessman Vickram Seubarran at his Number Two Village, East Canje Berbice house last Sunday evening.  Singh was on Friday charged with manslaughter and granted $750,000 bail.

However, Mohabir yesterday noted that while he had transported Singh several times to Seubarran’s house in the past, he did not do so on the night the businessman was killed.

Meanwhile, as of yesterday afternoon police had not made any arrest in the matter but a source noted that investigators were working with several theories.