Six armed bandits on Wednesday barged into a West Demerara church and relieved the pastor and congregation of more than $2 million during worship service.
Assistant Pastor of the Victory Deliverance Ministry church, located at Vive-La-Force, Odia Persaud Sookdeo up to last evening was still in shock over the robbery. As the man nursed injuries to the back of his head, he sustained from a severe gun-butting from an irate bandit he said, “I still can’t believe they come into the church and rob us even as we praised the Lord. I am still shocked and hurt because we have been doing so much for this community and now this.”
Police last evening said they arrested two men who are assisting with investigations.
According to Sookdeo, the men escaped with $2.2 million, which was to be used to his family’s home; Bds$1,500, which his daughter had sent to fund a Christmas party for the neighbourhood children. They also took a quantity of jewellery that belonged to his family and jewellery, money and cellular phones from the 40-odd parishioners who were attending service at the time. The men also escaped with bicycles and car keys that belonged to the parishioners. Some of the keys were recovered yesterday morning not far from the scene.
The church is held at the bottom flat of Sookdeo’s home and it was just after 6.30 pm when the bandits struck. Sookdeo said he was not feeling well so he had asked a parishioner to carry on the evening’s service.
“We had just finishing singing and praising the Lord and were just about to go into the word of God when this man run through the gate and run straight up to the preacher and said ‘you is the pastor, you is the pastor? Is you we want we come fuh all deh money’,” Sookdeo said.
He said he was sitting at the back of the church and as the armed bandit accosted the preacher five bandits entered the building and told them not to move.
Three of the bandits took the preacher to the upper flat, where Sookdeo and his family lived, and they were overheard demanding money. After about a minute, he said, the parishioner told them he was not the pastor and that the person they wanted was downstairs.
Sookdeo said one of the bandits led the parishioner back downstairs and they approached him. “He said, ‘you is the pastor?’ And I said no I am the assistant pastor and that the pastor was overseas, which is the truth since my son is the pastor of the church,” Sookdeo said.
He said they then asked him if he owned the building and when he replied in the affirmative, he was gun-butted and taken upstairs. The man said he was chilled to the bone when he saw his 15-year-old daughter, four-year-old grandson and a female parishioner lying face down while an armed bandit stood guard over them.
“One of them turned and tell me he would shoot from the little boy right up if I don’t give them all the money,” he said, while another one instructed him to, “‘Give me all the drug money, all the jewellery and everything’. And I told him we don’t deal with drugs we are church people and we don’t have that kind of money.”
Sookdeo said he then handed over all the jewellery and had tried to stall the bandits by taking clothes from a wardrobe “pretending that there was no money but then one of them hit me again and again at the back of me head and it burst and start to bleed. I nearly get black out and I leaned against the wall. He said, ‘The boss man send we fuh deh money and we want the money’.”
At that point, Sookdeo said, he handed over the cash they had in the house and the sum seemed to satisfy the bandits as they took him downstairs to his congregation forced him to lie down.
The bandits then proceeded to rob the congregation; children and adults. They then rode off on bicycles to a sluice near the church, where police have said they escaped in a boat along the Demerara River. Sookdeo said some of his neighbours observed the robbery but they were too afraid to assist.
Soon after the bandits escaped the police were called and they arrived about half an hour later and began investigations.
Sookdeo said he went to the West Demerara Regional Hospital where he underwent treatment including stitching the gash he suffered at the back of his head. The man said he also visited the Georgetown Public Hospital yesterday morning.
According to Sookdeo the church is just about 11 months old and it was started when he, his wife and their youngest daughters remigrated to Guyana from Barbados. He said they also have five adult children still living in Barbados.
“We wanted to give back to the community and help out people here, we could have still been living in Barbados or gone to the States but we come back home and this is what we get, it is really sad,” the man lamented.
He said the church holds two weekly evening services on Wednesdays and Fridays and a main service on Sundays.
Sookdeo said he is thankful to God that no one was seriously injured during the ordeal.
