An elderly man was found dead on Monday evening at his Vergenoegen, East Bank Essequibo home, where it is suspected that he was bludgeoned to death.
Azaad Ganie, 64, of Vergenoegen Side Line, was found with injuries to his head at around 8:30 pm on Monday, according to police, who say a woman and her two children that had been residing in the lower flat of the house have been arrested. A rolling pin, said to be the weapon that inflicted the injuries, was also found at the scene.
“The police arrest the lady, her son and daughter. I don’t understand why they would do this. I just got a call from my friend to come because my father had passed out. I doubted it at first but then he said that the people downstairs had beat him bad, so I rushed over,” Ganie’s son, Safraz, told Stabroek News.
He and other relatives who had converged outside of Ganie’s home were at a loss as to why he was killed in such a manner.
A neighbour recalled hearing Ganie hollering “neighbour, neighbour” but said she thought that he was probably having a nightmare and did not make a big fuss about it. “I didn’t expect anything like this to happen. I thought he was probably having a bad dream or something because there was no shouting or no sort of noise to indicate that anything was really wrong,” she explained.
She added that she did not venture outside because she thought the people who were living downstairs would have probably assisted him if anything was really wrong. “By them people living downstairs, I say that if he tek in sick or anything they would help he out because they living right downstairs,” she said.
It was not until the police arrived at the house that neighbours realized that something was terribly wrong. The police opened the door of the house and upon checking saw the dead man with a broken rolling pin, which they suspect to be the weapon.
The neighbour also said that the woman and her children put a large padlock on Ganie’s door and went downstairs as though nothing had happened. “It seems as though they were just waiting on the police to come. They tell the police how he gone out with some … girl, but the police break off the padlock and see he dead in the house. That’s how come they hold them,” she added.
Ganie was a father of two.
Safraz said that the last time he spoke with his father was two weeks ago and he did not indicate that anything was wrong or that he was having trouble with the people who lived downstairs.
When asked if the woman and her children were tenants of Ganie, Safraz explained that he was not too sure. He only knew that they were living there for only a couple of months.
The man also claimed that an hour before his father’s body was discovered, the woman’s husband had returned to the home and packed up most of their stuff. The downstairs looked as if it had been ransacked afterward, indicating that the man had packed in a hurry.
A post-mortem examination of Ganie’s remains is scheduled for today.
