Three armed bandits stormed two houses at Canefield, East Canje early yesterday morning and robbed the occupants of an undisclosed amount of cash and jewellery.
The masked bandits, who carried two guns and a cutlass, fired a shot at the second house after the owner, Jagnarine Mangru, 64, tried to protect his property by bracing the door shut. He kept bracing the door to keep the men out but had to give up after the door opened a little and the bandits pushed the barrel of a gun through and fired the shot.
The pellets pierced the gas stove and other sections of the house. After the bandits got in they dealt Mangru a blow to his head with the gun-butt and he fell to the ground.
They told him they would shoot him if he moved and demanded money and jewellery. He told them “me a wan pensioner; me nah gat nothing.” His wife, Welima Mangru, 60, hid in a corner of the room after hearing the commotion. But the bandits did not enter the room. Two of the bandits, who had the cutlass and a “long gun,” headed up the stairs to where the Mangrus son, Satesh, 39 and his wife, Sunita, 28 and three children ages, eight, five and one, were. One kept watch over them with a “small gun” and “he tell me he gat to shoot me before he go away because me brace the door.” Jagnarine said he begged him, “Ow daddy nah kill me, me a wan old man, wah me do ayo…” He told this newspaper that “this place where we does live thief-man don’t come here… everybody does live nice.”
During the ordeal, which lasted about 10 minutes, Sunil too begged the bandits not to hurt him and his family and promised to give them whatever they wanted. They stole $30,000 and some “solid gold” from him before fleeing.
The men had just finished raiding the house of Nanwatie Ganyah, 40, around 12:15 am, after gaining entry by smashing the louvre window to her bedroom. She was at home with her two daughters, aged 19 and 14, when she heard the dogs barking fiercely. When she looked out, she saw the three bandits in front of the house and started to scream.
But that did not prevent the bandits from entering and spending about an hour terrorizing them.
Nanwatie ran over to her daughters’ bedroom and the three tried to secure themselves in the room. The bandits kicked open the door and “choked her” and then “chucked” her and her daughters into the living room, her husband, Takurdyal Ganyah, 45 said.
They then started to ransack the house and “found all the money and jewellery.” A tractor operator at the Rose Hall Estate who operated the 4 pm to 4 am shift, Ganyah told this newspaper that he was at work when he received a call about the robbery around 2 am.
He left immediately and when he got home he noticed that “they [bandits] upturned the entire house.” His wife and daughters were still highly traumatized. The police were there conducting investigations.
