Several persons, including two women have been arrested following the bullet-riddled robbery at Wellington Park, Corentyne around 1:40 am on Monday which left a guard dead and his employer nursing gunshot injuries.
The women who are in custody were said to be entertaining a group of policemen from the Tactical Services Unit (TSU) based at the Whim Police Station, at their home.
Residents have criticized the police for the slow response and charged that at the time of the robbery the vehicle belonging to the TSU members was seen parked in a street between Wellington Park and Tarlogie.
However, Commander of ‘B’ Division, Steve Merai said he received the same report and conducted investigations and dismissed it as “nonsense.” Another senior rank had said they were “looking into” the reports against the ranks.
Merai pointed out that the TSU members who responded to the robbery left the Whim Police Station, six miles away, immediately after receiving the report. The ranks had just gotten to the station for the new shift.
According to the commander, another vehicle had gone to Black Bush Polder earlier in response to another report.
He said the officers could not get to the scene before the bandits fled because the call about the robbery was not made to the station immediately.
According to him some persons complained that they were calling the Whim station but the lines were engaged while others placed calls to the New Amsterdam station.
He confirmed that the 911 number is working, saying that after revisiting the scene he tried the number and “got through.”
The top cop pointed out that the woman, Vasantie ‘Sandra’ Ganesh, 43, whose house was being robbed, called her husband, Surendra Ganesh, 50, – who left home at 1 am for the airport – and her brother, Rajendra Persaud while the men were breaking into the house but may have panicked and did not call the police.
He said the bandits apparently used shot guns and 9 mm automatic weapons.
Rajendra, the Chief Executive Officer of Nand Persaud & Co. Ltd. was responding to his sister’s call in a white Toyota Mark 11 motorcar, PKK 3482 when the bandits opened fire. He “ducked” to escape the hail of gunfire and “mashed the accelerator hard but he could not see where he was going…,” a relative said.
His car ended up crashing into a utility pole, plunging into a ditch, bouncing out again and became hooked on a plough in front of a relative’s house obliquely opposite the scene.
He remained in the vehicle and shortly after, the Pajero, driven by a supervisor and carrying the security guard of the company, Arjune Gobin, 47, of Bloomfield, pulled up alongside it thinking it had parked there.
The bandits immediately fired shots at the vehicle, hitting Arjune in the head. He was rushed to the Port Mourant Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
Based on investigations, a relative who witnessed the break-in only placed the call to the police after Rajendra’s car crashed. By then the bandits had gained entry to the house.
Merai said it took the ranks about 25 minutes to get to the scene. About eight minutes before that the bandits were seen escaping through an abandoned house next door and into the bushy area.
The bandits used sledgehammers to pound a hole into the southern concrete wall through which they entered the house.
They also fired wildly at the house, shattering glass windows but they were unable to get past them because of the heavy grills.
Relatives could not say how many persons had broken into the house but according to police reports, two bandits were breaking the wall while two others remained downstairs.
After entering the house the bandits switched on all the lights. They then used an inner stairway to get to the bottom flat and shot at the padlocks on the door to let their accomplices in.
They then proceeded to ransack the house while continuing to riddle it with bullets.
By then Vasantie and her two children; Avinash, 20 and Vinaya, 14, had secured themselves in a room in the house.
The bandits only managed to escape with $5,500 that was in a wallet in Avinash’s room. They attempted to steal a laptop computer from the bottom flat but left it on a table in the yard instead.