President/Founder of the Camal International Home for Homeless and Battered Women Carmen Kissoon was robbed of her 60-year-old diamond and gold ring, along with other cash and valuables at her Albion Public Road home, just after midnight on Sunday.
Kissoon, 77, was still shaken hours after the ordeal, which lasted approximately 15 minutes, opposite the Albion Police Station.
Kissoon said she was asleep, when she was awakened by the glare of a flashlight, in the hand of a masked man, who was also armed with a gun.
Earlier, she had left the home a stone’s throw away in the company of a visitor from Surinam, her granddaughter-in-law, a resident of the home and a child.
After dinner, they watched a movie before retiring at 23:00 hrs.
“It was about an hour later I saw a guy with a flashlight. So I asked what happen, before jumping into a seating position,” she said.
“He was masked, thin and tall. He told me not to make noise. If I did he would blow my head off. At the time he had a long gun [indicating between her wrist and elbow]. The light was on the verandah. Some light reflected in the bedroom. He told me to give him the money and the jewellery. I had two purses on a clothes horse. He emptied the contents on the bed. He took $282,000 along with some Canadian and United States of America currency, which was in one of the purses. The other purse had $56,000. He took all. He noticed a dish on the vanity which contained three gold chains and a pair of earrings. He took all. Two of the gold chains had Hindu symbolic pendants. They were gifts from my daughters. He also removed my ring from my finger. The ring was given to me by my now deceased husband. I had that ring for almost 60 years. It has so much sentimental value.”
Kissoon said the bandit was not satisfied with what she had given him and asked for her granddaughter-in-law Suzanne Jowaheer, who was in one of the other five bedrooms.
It was while exiting her room, accompanied by the bandit, that she observed another man standing at the bedroom door, and a third in the living room. Those bandits were also armed and masked. They did not say anything and the shorter of the two gave Kissoon a cup of water when she requested it.
Kissoon said that on approaching her granddaughter-in-law’s bedroom, she shouted her name repeatedly before she opened the door.
“I told her thief, thief. The bandits were standing next to me. She asked what’s wrong, and the bandits told her them is bandit and they want the carwash money. She brought out the purse and took out the money and gave them,” Kissoon said.
Jowaheer told this newspaper that she thought initially it was a bad dream and only believed it was for real when one of the men opened a bag, displaying the booty to her. Quickly she handed over the cash amounting to $20,000. Her Samsung S4 phone was also taken and its code demanded, even before the thief saw the mobile device. An Acer laptop was also removed from the home.
Further, she was ordered to go to the lower flat of the two-storey building to a freezer containing several beverages, which the bandits packed in their backpacks, before exiting through the backdoor and back fence, where a cycle track was visible.
Subsequently, searches were made around the home, and it was then discovered that the thieves had entered the home by bending one of the iron bars on a window.
It is suspected that one of the perpetrators may have once lived at the Camal Home and had returned recently and was living at Kissoon’s residence, from where a carwash is operated.
Since the incident, two teenagers employed at the carwash have not been seen.
Investigations are continuing.
