After being forced to watch as a bandit shot her husband during an attack on Monday, Corentyne resident Farida Dhanraj, 47, is ready to sell her property and move to start over somewhere else.
The woman’s husband, Skeldon Market vendor Mohabir ‘Bozo’ Dhanraj, 47, was shot during the attack by a gang of four men, including one armed with a gun at their Section ‘B’, No. 58 Village, Corentyne area. She was beaten and robbed of jewellery, estimated at $70,000 and $10,000 cash, by the men, who are still being sought by police.
Mohabir Dhanraj was yesterday transferred from the New Amsterdam Hospital to the Georgetown Public Hospital, where he underwent surgery to have the bullet removed from his left thigh. His wife, meanwhile, told Stabroek News yesterday that after the traumatising attack, she will make plans to sell her home and belongings and start anew.
“Meh can’t live deh no more. I scared for my life. That man put a knife to my throat, a gun to my head and want chop off my hand and I gon continue living there? Meh gah find a place. I can’t do it… I will sell off everything and start fresh,” a devastated Farida Dhanraj said.
She charged that the crime has become overbearing, while noting that it was the fourth time her home was targeted by bandits. During an attack last year, her 23-year-old son was beaten and shot at. “Is a good thing the bullet went over his head that time,” she added. The woman noted that the four attacks all occurred within two years and she has now lost confidence in the police. “I can’t depend on the police… they does come and ask a few questions and they gone. Everything done right there,” she said.
The woman added that she was treated at the Skeldon Hospital, where she was required to have seven stitches to the head. She noted that the painkillers she was given have not seemed to help her. “Me sit down with pain in meh head… is my whole head and forehead swell up,” Dhanraj said as she sat outside the theatre awaiting her husband’s exit from surgery.
Police had said that the two were in separate hammocks under their house when the suspects confronted and ordered them into the house. Inside, they demanded cash and jewellery and proceeded to relieve the woman of her jewellery. Her husband was shot after he raised an alarm. The bandits fled leaving eight live 16-gauge shotgun cartridges behind, police said.
