Just after noon on December 30 last year, Parahoo, his wife and granddaughter had just exited the New Market Street restaurant when they were attacked. Parahoo struggled with the attackers trying to protect a bag containing $1.2 million and important documents. He was beaten to the ground and then shot in the left leg by one of the bandits.
“I’m only in bed all the time…I’m trying with life,” Parahoo told Stabroek News during a telephone interview yesterday. “I can’t walk properly and whenever I do with the aid of my crutches it is very painful for me.”
Walking, Parahoo said, is something he will never take for granted again. The bone in his left leg was pierced six times to accommodate about 12 inches of steel. He needs to constantly place ointment on the punctures to ensure that the flesh around the steel is well lubricated. He visits the hospital monthly and has been told by doctors that it will be a long time before he can regain the use of his leg. “I am happy to be alive though and I am lucky that my leg will heal…the doctors have really done a lot of work on it,” Parahoo said.
Since the incident, Parahoo said he has heard from the police twice. Both times they had hauled in some “youths” off the road and called him and his wife for an identification parade. However, Parahoo said he cannot identify the men since he didn’t get a good look at their faces and his wife attended one of the parades but was unable to identify their attackers among the suspects.
“The people who were in that restaurant that day saw everything,” Parahoo stated, “but no one wants to come forward as a witness or to aid in the identification process… it is so sad that Guyanese people are this way.”
Parahoo has given up hope of ever getting justice, saying that police never put enough effort into investigating such cases. “Even if I had been shot dead the police still wouldn’t be making much of an effort,” he said.
Meanwhile, the loss of the money in the robbery threatened Parahoo’s dredging business.
The money was supposed to be used to pay workers and cover other expenses. Many of the employees had understood the situation and afforded the business man some time to clear his debt.
The documents which Parahoo lost during the robbery have been a great inconvenience as well. It takes forever, the businessman said, to replace simple things like an identification card or passport.
Because of his condition, Parahoo has not been able to be directly involved in his dredging operations. “My wife is doing all the hard work now,” he explained. “She does all the running around the city to conduct our business transactions and she is also the one who must go to the interior location to overlook the dredging operations and then when she is at home she must take care of me.”
City businesses, Parahoo opined, need to take their security to another level. Businesspersons come from all over the country for transactions and the city’s businesses should be able to offer these people a feeling of security. “I never expected to be robbed and shot that day…all I was going was eating lunch with my family,” Parahoo said.
