An Anchorville, Port Mourant woman was shot on Friday night when a robber fired a shotgun from the verandah of a neighbouring house during a robbery.
Rookmin Beharry, 39 was hit in her chest by pellets according to police, who said that two men have been arrested in connection with the attack.
Beharry has since been admitted to the New Amsterdam Hospital, where she is said to be bleeding a lot.
She was taken along with the victims of the robbery to the Port Mourant hospital where she was treated and given a paper to go to the New Amsterdam hospital yesterday.
The robbery, which occurred around 10:45 on Friday, was carried out by five men, including one armed with a shotgun, police said in a statement yesterday.
The men broke through a window and into the home of celery farmer Mohabir Paras, 35, and his wife Sunita Beir, 32, at Anchorville, Port Mourant, Corentyne, and assaulted them before taking away a quantity of jewellery, a mobile phone and $10,000.
At the time of this newspaper’s visit at their home yesterday, the couple was replacing windows that were broken in the invasion.
The attack lasted approximately 20 minutes, Beir told Stabroek News yesterday, recalling their ordeal. She was awakened by their barking dog and woke her husband, who went to check if anything was wrong. The light under the house was out and as a result he turned on the outside light to see if anyone was in the yard. After he opened a window, he saw a man wearing a white mask in the yard, and he tried to raise an alarm by shouting.
Beir said she heard him shout, and when she tried to find out what was wrong, he did not answer. The bandits started to fire shots wildly in the yard, she said, adding that one of them broke a window and entered the house and opened the door for the others. She later learnt that neighbours were going to their rescue and the men fired the shots to force them back into their homes.
Although Paras started to cry and begged the men not to hurt him, he was ordered to “kneel in front the room” and they started to deliver blows to his head using a cutlass as they demanded money and jewellery.
“After I heard what they told him, I kneel down and took out the chain I had on and give it to them along with a pair of earrings,” Beir recounted, adding that the men were not satisfied and one of them marched into the couple’s bedroom and ransacked it. The bandit was not done, and she gave him cash and an earring and a ring.
A devastated Beir said another robber asked her what else she had and she told him that she gave his accomplice but he did not believe her and he dealt her slaps to her face and broadsided her with a cutlass on her leg, while demanding more. They also continued to beat her husband with a DVD player until it was broken, she said.
According to Beir, the men discussed if they should kill them and they begged for their lives. The robbers, she said, cranked the gun but ended up firing the shot out of the house, after which one of them said it was “time to beat out” and they left the home. Before they escaped, the bandits threatened to return and kill them if they called for police or screamed.
Police responded about five minutes after neighbours called.
Beer said neither she nor her husband was severely injured and they were sent home after treatment at the Port Mourant Hospital.
