– say officers starving them, prison filthy
Three of the five men remanded to prison on Friday over the kidnapping of a Mahaicony rice farmer and his employee were treated at the Georgetown Public Hospital yesterday for various injuries. The men had alleged police brutality during their court appearance.
Shackled and barefooted, Rajan Persaud, Suresh Kant Hardowar and Michael Payne turned up at the hospital just before noon amid heavy police security. Hospital patients stared initially, but then ignored the men until Persaud started to protest the treatment he has received since being detained on Wednesday last.
“I ain’t get nothing fuh eat since Wednesday and no phone call to me family. This ain’t right,” he charged while at the Accident and Emergency (A&E) Unit. He then began to grumble under his breath, but resumed the loud protest when someone informed him that the media were present.
Persaud, who has one arm, said he was being punished by not being offered any food and he accused the authorities of pushing him to the brink of starvation. He claimed that all he has been fed was water and “today a bottle ah drink which ah share”. The remand prisoner displayed a bottle of I-CEE Big Red soft drink saying he had to share it with the other two men also at the hospital.
As he spoke, his co-accused Hardowar nodded his head in agreement then chipped in that he too has been left without food. “Is hungry I deh hay hungry. They ain’t feed we since we get lock up,” he said, struggling to control his emotions. The law enforcement officers who accompanied the men to the A&E unit watched on quietly as they complained.
Persaud then further alleged that the police had shot him in the leg after he was detained at Berbice and that the gun was aimed at him a second time, but he was spared. He displayed the gunshot wound in his left foot yesterday.
“De officer shoot me after they detain me, he didn’t shoot to detain me. The man even go to shoot me again but somebody in the group tek de gun from he,” Persaud alleged.
He said the police have treated him and the others cruelly since their detention and went on to lament the state of the Lusignan prison where they are being held.
Efforts to contact officials yesterday on the claims Persaud made proved futile. According to Persaud, the prison is unfit to house humans because it is filthy. He said the conditions there are unsuitable and declared that even criminals should not be treated in such a manner.
He said he was speaking out because he wanted people to know the kind of treatment some prisoners received; treatment he referred to as unfair.
He also claimed yesterday that prior to them being taken to the public hospital, an East Coast Demerara doctor had refused to see them because of their appearance and general condition.
On Friday, the trio was charged along with Denswick Booker and Dwaine Johnson with two counts of obstruction with intent to kidnap for ransom.
They were not required to plead to either count when Magistrate Sherdel Isaacs-Marcus read the charges to them.
She later remanded them to prison until tomorrow when they will make an appearance at the Mahaicony Magistrate’s Court.
The gang is alleged to have abducted Parasram Ramnarace and Patrick Skeete at Letter T Estate, Mahaicony on Wednesday. Quick action by members of the joint services led to the rescue of Ramnarace of Dundee, and Skeete of Calcutta both in Mahaicony who were kidnapped in the Abary Backlands allegedly by the five men one of whom was armed with a gun.
Reports are that around 3 am, Skeete, who is an employee of the Ramnarace Brothers of Dundee, Mahaicony was pumping water in the backlands when the five men assaulted and bound him. Ramnarace was subsequently held by the men who robbed him of $20,000, a gold ring and other personal items. Demands for a $12 million ransom were later made.