Dewan Roshan, shot by one of two armed bandits at his home on Saturday evening, was stripped of his pants along with $80,000 and is still in a serious condition at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH).
Roshan after undergoing emergency surgery on Saturday night was admitted to the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU) where he remained yesterday. The man, relatives said, sustained a gunshot wound just above the belly button. He “couldn’t speak and didn’t look so good”, they said.
Police in a press release yesterday said they are investigating the armed robbery that occurred at about 6.45 pm. Roshan, they said, was attacked and robbed by two men who were armed with a shotgun and a cutlass.
The businessman, according to police, was standing in his yard after closing his business place when the two men entered and held him up. A scuffle ensued between Roshan and the men during which he was shot to his abdomen.
The men stole $80,000 before escaping.
The man’s nephew Deo Prakash, according to reports he had received, told this newspaper on Saturday that the bandits used Roshan’s licensed firearm to shoot him. He had added that searches launched to recover the weapon revealed it was missing.
“When I got to the hospital the neighbours who brought my uncle here said that he had told them that the robbers did not enter the shop with guns, but used his firearm instead,” Prakash had explained.
However, Toolo Khamraj told this newspaper yesterday that police have since recovered her brother’s firearm. According to her, it was two, as confirmed by police, not three men who attacked Roshan.
The 49-year-old shop owner had attempted to fire at the men as they escaped, she said, and only managed to “crank the gun” but it fell from his hand before he could pull the trigger. At that point Roshan was already wounded and would’ve been bleeding profusely from his wound.
His 85-year-old mother Somara Roshan, with whom he lives, was present during the robbery.
The woman was visibly distressed yesterday and repeatedly asked about her son’s condition. Roshan’s shop is located at the front of his home’s ground floor and was already closed for the day when the men attacked, Somara said.
Roshan also makes salted fish to supplement his income. The front and sides of his yard are well fenced but the rear is left open. A trench separates Roshan’s backyard from the river dam which relatives say the bandits used to gain entry to the property and launch their attack.
When the men attacked, Roshan, Somara said, was outside packing away bread he’d bought that afternoon. The kitchen door was open and the men forced her son inside where they demanded cash from him.
“If you see how they beat he,” Somara said between sobs. “If you see how bad dem beat he…he throw de bread on dem trying to fight back but dem push he in de kitchen and start beating he and then dem shoot he.”
Somara said that after the men wounded her son they turned on her and began demanding she tell them where the money was. However, the woman remembered being too scared to respond and the men headed for the shop.
“When we check later we see the drawer where the money does be open and de money de gone,” she said.
Meanwhile, Khamraj said that she learnt from her brother that his attackers turned off the light under the shed in the yard but persons still saw Roshan struggling with the men.
“People see him struggling with the men but they were afraid to come in the yard,” Khamraj said. “After they hear the gunshot they were too afraid to get closer…they say that the men run towards the backyard and escaped through there, they mus’ be swim over the trench.”
Residents indicated that “as far back we can remember such a thing has never happened here”.
“I born and grow up in Hague Backdam,” Somara explained. “But I come and live here [Peter’s Hall] and in all meh years here I never hear about nothing like this and now it happen to me”.
