A Tain, Corentyne man sustained gunshot injuries to his left knee and chops to both hands when bandits stormed his home around 6:40 pm on Sunday, terrorized his family and stole almost $3 million worth in articles.
Oliver Permaul, 30, was rushed to the New Amsterdam Hospital before being transferred to the Georgetown Public Hospital yesterday.
Last evening he was admitted to theatre to have a surgery for his left hand which was almost severed.
The five masked bandits also gun-butted his wife, Nazeema Amoolayah,
35, to her head, lashed her with a cutlass and kicked her in the abdomen.
She also had to be treated at the hospital.
Amoolayah said she had already handed over the money and jewellery to the bandits but they were not satisfied. They then threatened to “finish her.”
She told them there was more in the microwave and ran towards it under the pretext of retrieving the cash. Instead she fled for her life and secured herself in the bathroom nearby as she screamed for help.
The gunshots were not heard because of firecrackers that were blasting in the area. A few men who were operating a mini cement mixer nearby eventually heard her screams but by the time they ran to the scene the men had already fled.
Meanwhile, her husband lay helpless on the floor in pain and bleeding from his wounds.
Their one-year-old son was on the bed crying while their five-year-old daughter ran around the kitchen as she screamed in fright.
The heartless bandits then kicked the child in her belly and dumped her in the hammock.
In tears, Permaul begged them not to kill his daughter but to kill him instead.
Unknowing to Permaul the bandits had also locked Amoolayah’s 15-year-old son, Sayaad Samsuran in a working freezer.
After the bandits had left and the woman was safe to come out she heard the loud banging from inside the freezer and freed her son.
He related that while in there he was scared and sucked on a few pieces of ice. He also took an ice pan to hit on the freezer door.
Her mother, Naimoon told this newspaper that she was on the road around 6.50 pm when she received a call about the attack.
When she got to the scene Permaul had already been taken to the hospital.
She said her granddaughter was out of the hammock and had gotten her feet smeared in her father’s blood. She later discovered that the girl’s head had an injury.
Reports are that about two weeks ago some strange men walked into a store that Amoolayah operates in a mall at Rose Hall under the pretext of purchasing clothes.
The men who were also “looking all around,” noticed a gold chain on her neck and during the robbery they demanded the “gold chain yuh had on.”
Amoolayah’s mother feels that the men had changed their minds about robbing her daughter at the store, because a woman who works at the store recognized them.
