The police have released five persons who were held in connection with the brutal attack on two West Coast Berbice vendors early Sunday morning.
The men were released after relatives of the victims confirmed that they were not involved in the attack.
“Is five wrong persons the police went and collect,” a relative of Abdool and Neeranie Kadir said.
The Kadirs were beaten and chopped by three bandits armed with cutlasses and a handgun during an invasion of their home early Sunday morning. Two of the couple’s daughters were also terrorised and robbed during the attack.
Police had said that they responded to a report about the attack and subsequently came under fire from a group of men along the Number 2 Village Public Road.
The relative of the Kadirs, who asked not to be named, stated that the men were seen hiding behind some sucker trees in an empty lot beside a neighbour’s yard and one even went into another yard as he hid from the police.
The police reportedly left the bandits and pursued some other men who had just left a wedding house. The police began firing shots in the air, the relative said.
Meanwhile, Neeranie Kadir, who sustained a chop to her wrist, has been discharged from the Georgetown Hospital. She is unable to move the hand, which was described as lifeless.
The family had said they found a sleeping guard and sleeping nurses when they went to the Fort Wellington Hospital for treatment after the attack.
However, Region Six Health Officer Gavinash Persaud was adamant yesterday that the nurses were not asleep when the Kadirs went to seek medical attention.
Persaud said the gate of the hospital is usually closed at about 11PM as a security measure but a security guard is there to open the gate if required.
Asked about the reported cases of nurses stitching wounds without administering anaesthetic, Persaud said that no nurse would have done that at the Fort Wellington Hospital.
However, the couple’s relatives maintain that the security guard was asleep as were the nurses and that the gate and doors of the hospital were only opened after continual banging.
The relative said the patients can testify for themselves about the poor service they received. “That lady (Neeranie) coulda bleed to death right at the gate because how long them nurse take to come out,” the relative said, while adding that the family is contemplating taking further actions against the hospital for the neglect it encountered.
