Mon Repos goldsmith Mahendra Persaud was beaten with an iron bar and robbed by two men after he went to Ann’s Grove, East Coast Demerara (ECD) to buy raw gold.
Minutes after the robbery, public-spirited citizens at Ann’s Grove were able to capture one of the perpetrators. The second suspect was later arrested by police. Both men remained in custody yesterday.
The incident, this newspaper understands, occurred between 12pm and 1pm yesterday at the Ann’s Grove Seawall area. Persaud, a senior police source told Stabroek News, received a call on his cellular phone. A male caller told him that they had gotten his number from another dealer and asked him whether he was interested in purchasing raw gold.
The man who called Persaud, the source said, informed him that his cousin had a quantity of raw gold to sell at a reasonable price and an arrangement was made to meet the dealer at the “Hope turn” (Hope is the village located next to Ann’s Grove).
Sometime before noon yesterday, the source reported, the man picked up Persaud in a bus and took him to the arranged location. When Persaud arrived there, he was directed to walk north towards the Ann’s Grove seawall, where the man said his cousin was waiting with the raw gold.
A second man was waiting on the seawall, the source said, and as the goldsmith approached him he pulled out an iron bar, which he had hidden in his pants, and dealt Persaud a blow behind the head. The goldsmith collapsed after he was hit and was pushed over the wall on to the seashore.
The man with the iron bar, according to the source, then jumped down and hit Persaud several times about the body. The men then stripped the man of two gold rings, a silver hand band, a cellular phone, a scale and $99,000. Persaud was left lying at the location as the men fled.
As the men ran from the seawall location, the source said, Persaud managed to call out for help. Some men who were a short distance away around the Hope Koker area responded and started to chase one of the two attackers. The second man managed to escape during this chase.
The attacker, Stabroek News further learnt, ran some distance into the Ann’s Grove access road but was taken down by the men and some other residents who had joined the chase. The man, according to the source, was “roughed up” a bit by residents and subsequently handed over to police.
Investigators subsequently interviewed the man and based on information they received from him and Persaud they were able to locate and arrest the second man.
Persaud, the source also said, was not seriously injured. He was treated at a city hospital and then released.
