Five masked men, some of them armed, attacked and robbed a family at Cumberland, East Canje around 8.15pm on Thursday of $700,000 worth of jewellery and $13,000 cash.
Bandits held Doodranie Paltoo, 56, her children Jayshree Ramoutar, 34, and Hemant Kumar Ramoutar, 29, a cane harvester and his pregnant wife Kamila Narine, 26, at gunpoint and relieved them of the mentioned articles.
They jumped the back fence and escaped on foot.
Jayshree told Stabroek News that they were watching television in the grilled verandah when they saw men’s boots first as they were entering through the front door not realizing that they were bandits. Her brother shouted, “Don’t come in with y’all boots”. The bandits told him to be quiet and hit him behind the neck with the gun butt, ordering him and the six others occupying the house to lie face down on the floor.
One of the bandits held Hemant at gunpoint and demanded that he hand over the money and he told them that it was “out-of-crop” season and he didn’t have any money. The bandits told him that they would deal with him later and that he “Gat to die tonight”.
They then started to hit Jayshree on her head and took her into a bedroom where they demanded money but she too did not have any. One of the bandits pointed the gun to her head while the two others with cutlasses took her to the bottom flat through the inner stairway. They took her upstairs again shortly after and escaped.
Meanwhile, as they were hitting her a one-year-old relative started to scream. At this stage her mother, Paltoo, who was in the kitchen downstairs heard the child screaming and rushed upstairs to see why no one was attending to him.
That was when she came face to face with the bandits who held her at gunpoint and stripped her of her jewellery she was wearing at the time. She kept shouting “Ow don’t shoot meh: don’t beat meh, I got high blood pressure”.
The bandits then told her, “Granny don’t scream: don’t mek noise or we gon shoot”.
Jayshree said after the bandits escaped they started to scream, alerting neighbours who rushed over.
The police were contacted and they arrived promptly. According to her, almost one hour after the police and neighbours left the bandits tried returning to the house but the dogs started to bark.
They looked out in time to see the bandits jumping through a bond behind their house escaping again.
They again raised an alarm and dialled 911. A police patrol which was still in the neighbourhood searching for the bandits returned immediately but their efforts to capture them were futile.
Jayshree said she was pleased with the prompt response of the police and hoped that the bandits would be caught.
This is not the first time the family has been robbed. They were attacked by bandits four times in 2007 and twice last year. This robbery, Jayshree said, was the worst as all the members of the household were home to endure the ordeal.
