Despite failing to kick down the door to the house, the bandits who attacked the house of Shalem Baksh in Lusignan persisted and knocked out wooden bars from a window before smashing down his bedroom door and dragging him from under his bed where he had been hiding with his wife and daughter.
With tears running down her cheeks and a distant look in her eyes, Bibi Zuleka Baksh, stares at a plate of food before her, unable to raise a spoonful to her lips as she remembers the night when the gang of gunmen invaded her Lusignan home and riddled her husband with bullets as he pleaded for his life.
Baksh who had managed to hide under a bed in the modest two-bedroom house with her daughter had to watch her husband, Shalem Baksh being shot dead by gunmen who showed no remorse.
Her relatives expressed concern for her health yesterday.
There was a sombre mood all around the small farming community yesterday as the relatives of those killed struggled to come to grips with the tragedy. They once again issued a call for tighter security in the area ranging from the cutting down of the bush through which the gunmen reportedly entered and left, to having several fully equipped police groups doing patrols.
When Stabroek News visited Baksh at her Tract A home, she was seated on a mattress, her lower body covered with a sheet, playing with a plate of food on her lap. She just stared at it and gave no indication that she was aware of what was going on around her at that very moment.
Relatives said that when several policemen went to the home yesterday morning, Baksh started shaking when she saw the blue and black uniforms. They said that doctors visited the home on Monday night and yesterday morning and administered some medication to her.
Baksh’s mother Shairoon Khan told this newspaper that since the murders, her daughter has not been eating or sleeping. She said that they have to force her to eat something, adding that on Monday night, the doctors give her daughter an injection and that made her sleep a bit.
Now starting to cry, Khan said that she could not begin to describe the feelings that are erupting in her. She said that her slain son-in-law was very good to her and never used any bad words when speaking to her.
“I want justice to be served. That’s all I want”, Khan said amidst tears.
Baksh’s daughter, Sherry who lives several doors away said strangely she did not hear when the gunshots erupted in the neighbourhood.
She recalled that she received a telephone call and the person on the other end was crying. Before she could ascertain what was wrong, the line went dead. Sherry said that she called her parents’ home but did not get through. She managed to make contact with an uncle who lived nearby and he related the tragic news to her.
She later said that the gunmen gained entry into the house through a window near the stairway at the side of the house. She said first they tried kicking down the front door and when that did not work, they fired a shot at the louvre panes nearby.
Yet again, she said they could not enter as several wooden bars prevented them from doing so. In a calm voice, Sherry told this newspaper that the men went downstairs and returned with a piece of wood which they used to hit out the wooden bars. Once into the house, she added, the men climbed onto a table in the living room and peeped over the wall. After realizing that no one was in that room they moved to the next which was locked.
She said the men, who by now had turned on the lights, kicked down the door and dragged Shalem out from under the bed. Because his daughter and wife were also hiding there, there wasn’t much space for him.
Sherry added that the men shot her father as he lay defenceless on the floor while demanding to be told the whereabouts of the rest of his family.
She said that her father told the gunmen that they were downstairs and when they went and realized that no one was there they fired shots wildly, damaging a television in the process.
Sherry told this newspaper that the men went back upstairs and while demanding jewellery riddled her father with bullets. She added that her mother had to cover her sister’s mouth to stop her from screaming.
“We had no
where to hide”
Over at the Thomas residence which was the first to be attacked, several persons gathered as they expressed their solidarity with Gomattie Thomas. She lost her husband Clarence, children Ron and Vanessa and still has two more children, Roberto and Howard recuperating in the Georgetown Hospital.
When Stabroek News arrived at the home, Thomas was speaking with her relatives. Thomas who was calm throughout the interview said she is recovering slowly but still cries a lot as she recalled that horrific night.
“Me life has changed forever. I keep remembering hearing them bullets so it’s very hard pon me but I taking one day at a time”, she said forlornly.
Thomas, like several of the survivors vowed, that they will remain in their homes as they have nowhere else to go.
“I am staying right hey. If it was me time fuh die, I would have died that night” she said adding that God probably spared her life so that she could remain to look after the surviving children.
She said that she has been living in the area for fifteen years and had basically built her life there. Thomas stressed that she was not afraid and will not run but at the same time she said that tighter security is needed in the area. She called for some form of security for her property adding that that would make her feel safe.
Recalling that night, she said that she heard a gunshot near her home and before long the gunmen were at the front door trying to get in.
According to Thomas, repairs to the house were unfinished so the upstairs was just one big room with a blind enclosing the area where she and her husband slept.
She recalled that the place was dark and her husband tried to brace the door to prevent the men from entering but they managed to kick it open.
Thomas said that it was at this point that the gunmen opened fire, fatally injuring her husband and two children. “We had nowhere to hide
