Guard shot and killed
By Kim Lucas
The regular hubbub of Saffon Street, Charlestown was brutally interrupted yesterday afternoon when two x unmasked bandits stormed Jairam’s General store, killing the security guard and carting off in excess of $600,000.
Dead is 45-year-old Chaitram Etwaru, of 15 Public Road, Agricola, East Bank Demerara. Etwaru, who had only been employed with Vigil Guard Service for about six months, was reportedly shot in the abdomen and cheek as he stood outside the business place.
It was the latest blow struck by bandits in an orgy of deadly violence which erupted following the February 23 escape of five men from the Georgetown Prison.
Francis Jairam, proprietor, said he was sitting at his desk inside the store at around 1345 hrs (1.45 pm), “making out the books,” when he heard a single gunshot. He looked up just in time to see a man run up to where Etwaru had fallen, snatch the guard’s gun and run into the store.
“All the cash!” was the gunman’s demand as he pointed the gun at Jairam’s head. “1 opened the drawer, took out the cash [but] the other one – who was already in the store before – went directly to the drawer that had the big ones,” the businessman told reporters. He explained that the drawer he had pulled out contained mainly small notes, and the other drawer had the earnings from wholesale purchases. It was only then, Jairam said, that he realised that prior to the attack, one of the bandits was in the store, pretending to be a customer.
Before he knew it, the bandits were gone. Jairam estimates that the incident lasted no more than 20 seconds.
“This thing happen so quick that nobody could do anything to avert it,” the businessman said.
Mrs Jairam said after the bandits escaped, she and her son placed Etwaru in her car and took the shortest route possible to get him to the hospital.
“I saw that he was still breathing,” the woman said. According to Mrs Jairam, she applied the little first aid she knew, while her son took all the one-way streets to the hospital in an effort to save Etwaru’s life. She said at one point, while they were driving down a one-way street, the police stopped them.
“But when they realised what was the situation, they helped clear the traffic for us,” the woman recounted sadly, adding that Etwaru drew his last breath while she held him.
Meanwhile, one person claimed to have seen the bandits ride off on a motor scooter, which was parked a short distance away on Broad Street.
The police yesterday said that the two men who were in the store made their escape on a dark-coloured scooter which was ridden by a third bandit. The bandits also escaped with the guard’s .32 revolver and six rounds of .32 ammunition.
On Tuesday night, two unmasked men had robbed a businessman in a Garnett Street, Newtown shop, stripping him of cash and his wristwatch before escaping on the man’s motor scooter. Up to press time, that scooter had not been recovered.
The proprietor of the Garnett Street Health Mart, Dhanpaul Odit, had described the bandits as looking “very decent… very normal and no one would suspect that they are coming to rob you. They don’t look like bandits at all.”
It was the same report that Jairam gave this newspaper yesterday. “They were neatly dressed, looked like potential customers… I was deceived by these young men. They looked simple and plain, not like bandits at all,” Jairam said. One of the bandits, he said, was about six feet tall, with a “round, chubby face” and a low haircut, while the other was slightly shorter. He averaged their ages to be between 18 and 25 years. It was the same description Odit gave of his attackers.
“It was nobody from the five escapees… I am 100 percent sure,” Jairam told Stabroek News, alluding to the five men who escaped from the Camp Street jail on February 23, last.
At Etwaru’s Agricola home yesterday afternoon, the dead man’s sister and mother were overcome with grief as news of his death reached them. “Oh, de thief man kill meh buddy,” 38-year-old Lovil Etwaru screamed continuously as neighbours tried to console her and her 75- year-old mother. “This morning meh get up and cook for he… me tell he everyday to stop wuk deh,” the dead man’s sibling wailed. Etwaru leaves to mourn a 17-year-old daughter who reportedly lives in neighbouring Suriname, his mother, two sisters and two brothers.
As the news of the tragedy travelled, one bystander asked, “I want to know what happened to the police tracker dogs?”
Jairam said this was his fourth attack since 1991. “I have a good word for the government,” Jairam stated, “the escalation of crime in this country must be placed on their shoulders.”
The ruling PPP, in a release issued last evening, said it “strongly condemns this upsurge in armed and violent crimes, which coincides with the idolising and provision of cover for criminals and the demonising of the law enforcement agencies by certain sections of the PNC/R leadership and other elements in our society.”
Expressing its deepest sympathy and condolences to Etwaru’s family, the party called on all law-abiding citizens to offer continued and full cooperation to the police.
“This is another death at the hands of heavily armed bandits and cold-blooded murders since the Mash Day jail breakout by five dangerous criminals,” the PPP stated.
In a statement yesterday, Home Affairs Minister Ronald Gajraj expressed condolences to Etwaru’s family and said this act of criminality should not be “brushed aside lightly”.
Etwaru’s death is the third in five days as bandits continue a spate of daring armed robberies around the country. On Saturday, bandits murdered Annandale businessman Ramdeo Persaud and his wife Mahadai.
