Good Hope businessman Ramdat Balkarran was shot to the abdomen by one of two men who attacked him and his family early yesterday morning.
Ramdat, 45, was admitted to the Male Surgical Ward of the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH), where he was listed in a stable condition up to late yesterday afternoon. His wife, Shireen Balkarran, was slashed to the right arm by one of the attackers after she resisted their efforts to tie her hands and feet.
The Balkarrans live at their Lot 443 Good Hope, East Coast Demerara residence and business place with their son. Shortly before 2am, Shireen told this newspaper, she was awakened by her son, David Balkarran, and when she opened her bedroom door she saw two strange men with her son and one was pointing a gun at him. “When I open the door and see then I push back the door and try to lock them out,” Shireen recalled. “My husband wake up after he hear all de noise and screaming.”
The woman said that the attackers managed to haul her and her husband from their bedroom and then forced them along with their son to lie on the floor. The attackers, according to her, spent about 15 minutes in their house during which they demanded valuables and beat her husband before shooting him. “They make us lie down flat with our face on the ground and start saying that they want all the [expletive] money and they fire a shot in the air,” Shireen said.
Ramdat eventually gave in to the men and told them that he would give them everything they had at home. The businessman, Shireen reported, pointed the man to the place where they kept their jewellery. The woman said that she had not been able to determine the worth of the items stolen but is certain that the men were able to steal a “fat” gold chain, band and rings.
While her husband was away with the attacker who was armed with a gun, Shireen recounted, the second man used phone wire from her house and tried to tie her hands and feet. The woman said she resisted and the man slashed her arm. During this time, the woman said, she heard another gunshot.
“I don’t know if he [Ramdat] try to fight or what but after I hear the gunshot I see the robber who was with my husband run out and tell the other one that he shoot my husband and that they should get away,” the woman reported. The two perpetrators, she said, exited the house but she is unsure whether they were on foot or had some form of transportation waiting for them. Following the incident, Shireen said that she did not even try to call the police. The woman said that her main goal was to get her bleeding husband to the hospital. It was after he was rushed to the GPH, she explained, that she reported the matter to the police outpost located in the GPH compound.
“I don’t know if other people from the area hear the gunshots and call the police but by the time I done with the hospital and so and come back home the police and media people been at my house waiting on me,” she said.
When investigators started to look over the crime scene, Shireen said, it was discovered that the men removed the louvers from a window at the side of the house, pushed the grill out from the wall and climbed through the opening. Police, according to Shireen, dusted that particular area hoping to find fingerprints but were unsuccessful. “These robbers, they know their job good. Like they cover they hands and so when they were touching things…they didn’t wear no mask but they tied handkerchiefs around the bottom half of their face,” she said. The woman said that she and her family have been living in the area for about 12 years and have been operating their general store for about a decade. “This is the first time anything like ever happen to us,” Shireen stated.
Despite the traumatic experience, the woman still opened her store as per normal yesterday afternoon, saying that “life just has to go on.”
