By Dianne Gonsalves
An Essequibo man was shot dead on Tuesday night, reportedly by a Mazaruni Prison escapee who has managed to run rings around police and prison officers since December last year.
Dead is 38-year-old Indar Gajadar also known as ‘Son’ of Zorg Market Dam, Essequibo Coast, and the owner of a logging concession.
While Commander of ‘G’ Division, Gavin Primo has not named the escapee as the killer, he told Stabroek News last evening that the description of the suspect fits that of escaped prisoner Ronald Daniels called ‘Black Boy’. Police have since arrested five other men and searched a number of homes in the area.
“We are continuing our search for this prisoner. We had ranks checking for two days for him, but he is not staying one place all the time… he is moving around and persons are assisting him,” Primo told Stabroek News last night.
Basmattie Gadajar, the dead man’s sister, told Stabroek News that her brother left for the Backdam on Monday last and according to her he had intended to return home four days after. She said she and other family members were at home around 7 am yesterday, when they received the news of her brother’s death.
She said her brother had often complained about a man who had been stealing from the workers in the backdam and he had also reported the matter to the police station. She recounted too that her brother had said that the man stole foodstuff and valuables from the workers and was always able to make good his escape.
The woman said too that her brother did not own a gun but whenever he made reports to the police they would tell him to ‘shoot the man’ and never acted on his reports.
The dead man’s sister told this newspaper that one of her brother’s workers said that they were cutting logs in the backdam when a man with a shotgun approached them.
“He said the man told my brother to hand over his chainsaw, but since the saw was only three months into use, he apparently refused to cooperate,” she said.
She said her brother’s worker said other workers also watched as the “thief man” pointed his gun to the side of Gajadar’s right rib cage area and pulled the trigger. The man said as soon as Gajadar fell to the ground, they started running for help.
According to the man, it was not until around 7 am yesterday that they were able to get to the public road since they were moving on foot and were about twenty miles up the sand pit backlands. Basmati told Stabroek News that according to the worker, when the police reached the area where Gajadar was lying in a pool of blood, their vehicle started to malfunction.
The man said that since the vehicle could not move they decided to put Gajadar’s lifeless body into his tractor and pull the police vehicle back to the public road. The worker told the dead man’s relatives that when the police arrived on the scene they made no effort to look for her brother’s killer.
Gajadar leaves to mourn his wife and other relatives. He was described by his mother as a quiet and hard-working individual.
Police in Essequibo had launched a hunt to recapture Daniels, a prisoner who escaped from the Mazaruni prison last December and had been wreaking havoc in his hometown, Bethany village. Director of Prisons Dale Erskine had told Stabroek News in January that the police were trying to recapture Daniels. He said, however, that officers would not just randomly go in search of the man unless they receive leads or a position where the man could be found. Erskine said that police in Essequibo received word that the man was visible in the community and were working with those leads to recapture him. Daniels had escaped from the prison on December 12 last year. According to reports, the prisoner was working in the prison kitchen when he jumped over the fence and escaped. Daniels was serving a two-year sentence for break and enter and larceny committed sometime in 2005.
Meanwhile, Primo said they have received reports that Daniels is usually sheltered by persons in the Bethany community. The police officer noted that the escapee knows the terrain well and has been elusive. Asked whether there had been any recent sighting of the prisoner prior to Tuesday’s shooting, Primo said no, but acknowledged that they had received reports of Daniels terrorizing persons working in the backlands.
(Additional reporting by Nigel Williams and Heppilena Ferguson)
