A Bush Lot, West Coast Berbice mother is claiming wrongful arrest and detention by the police at the Fort Wellington Police Station, who she said kept her in custody for several hours on Sunday, while her three children including a one-year-old who breast-feeds, were unattended.
Nazeema Mohamed told this newspaper that she was held from around 7 am and kept there until 5 pm even though she pleaded with the detective to let her go and look after her children.
She lamented that her children had nothing to eat and she told the police officer that “pickney looking after pickney…” She meant that her nine-year-old son was left with his one-year-old and two-year-old brothers.
According to her, “Me din cook fuh me children… Me din even mek a cup of tea fuh dem.” A few hours later the police took her to her little shack and “me ask them, babe ayo eat? And them say no and me tek the lil one and nurse he.”
She recalled that she had gone to the station to make a report after her husband, Dave Dianand and his employer, a rice farmer were involved in a scuffle with a cattle farmer, when she was locked up.
She was accompanied by the rice farmer’s wife who was also taken into custody and released until in the evening.
According to her, the cattle farmer got there before them and the police locked them up based on his report, without even taking a statement from them. The cattle farmer was sent away shortly after.
She recounted that on Saturday her husband and his employer noticed that the cows belonging to the cattle farmer were destroying the rice.
The employer locked up the cows.
Around 6:00 the following morning, the employer went to pick up her husband to take him to work when the confrontation with the two farmers started “on me gap [bridge].”
She said she tried to “part the two of them… and then me call fuh me husband to help part them.” The woman is also alleging that the cattle farmer threatened to shoot the two men “and kill them” when he meets them in the creek.
She said she was told that the cattle farmer made a report to the police that the rice farmer hit him with a gun and then threw it to her.
Her husband and his boss did not go the station but went to the Abary Creek to tend to the rice instead.
She said the police brought her husband and the rice farmer out from the Abary Creek, and claimed, “dem beat me husband, dem slap he up and ask he weh de gun deh.”
A few hours later they took her to her shack to search for the gun but came up empty-handed. “Me tell them officer you can check me ‘big palace’ and see if you find any gun….”
After that they took her back to the station before finally releasing her.
