Saying the police failed to act on important leads to bring the suspected killers of shopkeeper Bibi Sheniza Khan-Bhola to justice, the woman’s family is now planning to use the upcoming elections campaign period to demand an inquiry into the handling of the investigation.
According to family members, although they provided police with telephone numbers and addresses for the suspects, eleven months on they are still at large. While some members of the woman’s family seem to believe that pursuing the police is a waste of time, others have convinced themselves that hope must not be lost.
Khan-Bhola, a 34-year-old mother of two, was found stabbed to death in her shop at Rock Creek, Cuyuni River, on February 27 last year. On the day before she was found dead, she had a heated argument with two men over a pump she had given them for mining.
Afterward, police had issued a wanted bulletin for Natton Anthony Stoute, of Helena No 2 Mahaica, East Coast Demerara. He was one of two men who had been staying with the woman around the time she was killed and who police are treating as the prime suspects. The force has never released the identity of the second man.
Speaking from her home in St Maarten, Bibi Hodge Sawh, the dead woman’s aunt, told Stabroek News that although the family is frustrated at the lack of response from the police, it has not given up hope that the killers will be caught.
She said that in the lead up to the country’s May 11 general and regional elections, her family along with the family members of other victims of brutal crimes will be campaigning across the country for justice. She said in addition to questioning the appointment of the acting police commissioner, she and her family need answers to questions about aspects of the investigation, including the conduct of the lead investigating rank.
Specifically, she added, they need to know how relatives of one of the suspects managed to make contact with the investigating rank. This occurrence alone, Sawh said, should be grounds for an immediate inquiry. The rank admitted that one of the suspects’ relatives had contacted him and he had a number for the person, she explained. As a result, she questioned how the rank managed to “get so close” to the suspect’s relative but could still not locate the man.
“I am demanding an explanation and I am asking the government to open an inquiry… is there corruption in the police force? Why are these people still at large?” she questioned.
“We mean business…. It is almost one year and we will not be intimidated,” she added.
Khan-Bhola’s family believes the two suspects hatched a plan to murder her because she wanted to take back the pump she had loaned them. They said the two suspects were fired by their employer and had no job. Khan-Bhola subsequently decided to loan a pump to them with the expectation that they would pay her for it. Things turned sour when the duo decided that they wanted to take the pump to another location even though they had given her no money.
The woman owned two shops in the Cuyuni area; one was being operated by her, while the other was in the control of her husband. In addition to selling clothing and other essential items that miners would need, she would cook food to sell to persons passing through or working in the area.
Her mother, Namawatti Khan recently said she is still emotionally distraught and frustrated by the fact that the killers are still at large. She said almost a year after her daughter’s death, police have ignored all the information given to them while she and her family continue to live in fear and are uncertain whether they will get justice.
She recalled being contacted last September by the investigating rank, who requested her presence at Police Headquarters, Eve Leary. She said when she went there, the rank inquired about her sister who lived in St Maarten and how she had managed to get information about the case to give to the media.
Khan said she dismissed the queries but later she began questioning how the rank managed to get her number. She said she also began questioning why she was being called when police were given contact details for the wanted men.
According to her, the family had provided the police with a telephone number for one of the men and an address for the other but little effort was made to use either. She added that after the murder, the mother of one of the suspects answered his phone when they called the number and thereafter it was turned off. She was upset because there are numerous cases where the police have been able to get killers with less information. “We provided them with phone numbers. Why is it that they can’t ketch these people?” she said, adding that efforts could have been made to trace the number or ascertain its ownership. She also lashed out at the police for failing to get a good image of the second suspect from the surveillance camera at the store in Bartica where they went to sell the woman’s stolen jewels.
She said the police told her they don’t have the equipment and skills to upgrade the image. “Why they doing these things to poor people?” she questioned, while pointing out that given the country’s high crime rate, equipment to enhance a blurry image is a must.
She said this failure underscored the need for the police to have a sketch artist. “We know his height, his colour… at least you could put something out,” she said, adding that based on the information they had police could at least have a drawing of the suspect’s face.
She further added that if the family could have managed to get information on the identity of the suspect, it would not have been hard for the police to gather much more.
Khan also pointed out that shortly after the murder, relatives informed the police that the men were travelling out of the area and even provided information about the bus they were in and what they were wearing.
She said the lackadaisical investigation into her daughter’s death has been a burden and some days she is still unable to eat. Khan-Bhola’s children, ages 14 and 15, are unable to sleep properly at night, she added, while expressing her regret that she did not make attempts to get counselling services for them.
The emotional woman pleaded with those in authority to ensure that the police act on the information given. She said the clock is slowly ticking and very soon all traces of the wanted men would disappear.
She also said that her relatives are still doing their “little investigation” to see if they pick up anything. “We ain’t telling police nothing no more because we have given police a lot of information and it is a waste of time,” she said, while recalling that they had picked up some information about where the second suspect was living. She said this information was passed to the police and the last update was that ranks went to the East Coast address and found out that the suspect does not live there, rather, his sister and brother-in-law are the occupants. She said she is unconvinced the police did enough investigations in this regard since if they truly wanted information they would have ensured that they got at least a photograph of the man from his relatives.
“We give them the address, direct them to the house, everything,” the woman said, adding that she is not rich and as such cannot afford to be running behind the police. “I am serving God. A true and living God and I will get my reward,” she, however, added, while noting that although she has given up on the police she knows that someday she will get justice.
