The manager of a Regent Street pawnbrokery was yesterday afternoon shot and relieved of a bag containing $200,000 and $75,000 in gold jewellery during a robbery.
Puran Ramotar, 30, told Stabroek News that he had just closed his Bourda Pawn Shop, located at Regent and Cummings streets around 4:05 pm, and was preparing to leave for home when an armed but petite teenager approached him and demanded his bag. He said the young robber wore glasses and a long-sleeved shirt, possibly as a disguise.
“I spin round and see this small-looking youth man… can’t be more than 16 but face hard bad, with a gun pointing at me. And same time, I seh wuh bag he cocked the gun and shoot me in meh foot and run,” Ramotar related.
He sustained a single shot in his left calf, but the bullet exited and also marginally penetrated his right leg.
The thief ran west to where a CG motorbike with rider was waiting on him at Cummings Street and they sped off south in the direction of South Road.
Ramotar said a traffic policeman was nearby and he approached but seemed too shocked to act.
Ramotar said he boarded a taxi and headed for the Georgetown Public Hospital.
When Stabroek News spoke to him he had just been treated by medical personnel and was being taken for an x-ray. He said he felt strong and was anticipating collecting the x-ray so he could he go home as he believed that his injuries were minor.
An eyewitness who sells clothes a short distance from the Bourda Pawnshop, said that from his vantage point he saw the young man approaching Ramotar gun-in-hand. He too said he was shocked at the apparent young age of the robber and lamented that it seemed the bandits were “getting younger every day.”
The man related: “…When I look up and see this lil lil boy with this gun in he hand… by the time I reach he done fire a shot and like he was going to shoot he again in he belly when I scream out and he run to he partner waiting pun de bike,” he said.
“Listen, I telling you this child is about 15/16 [years old] … What happening today man? These boys thieving from early! Young, young boys, I telling you.”
