An Angoy’s Avenue, New Amsterdam family was beaten and robbed by four armed bandits around midnight on Sunday.
The bandits escaped with $90, 000 in cash, three gold bangles and one silver bangle worth a total of $160,000, one gold chain worth $40,000, two cellphones and one tablet.
Somwattie Bacchus also known as `Samantha’, 40, of Lot 767 Timmers Dam, Angoy’s Avenue yesterday relayed to Stabroek News that minutes after 11. 30 pm on Sunday, four men, two armed with a gun each, one armed with both a gun and cutlass and another armed with a cutlass launched an attack on her family. The bandits kicked Bacchus and her husband, Ameer Bacchus, 44, multiple times leaving both with face and head injuries. Bacchus’s brother, Suresh Seecharran, 41, a hire car driver who resides next to her was also beaten about his body. The men were both taken to the New Amsterdam Public Hospital yesterday morning where after receiving treatment they were sent away.
Bacchus, who is a vendor at the Port Mourant Market and operates a grocery at her home, explained that her husband, brother and brother-in-law were having a few drinks since it was her youngest son’s birthday on Sunday.
“When they finish my brother went with the car to drop home me brother-in- law in Vryheid (Village), so as soon as he gone we padlock the gate and when he come back he blow. I was in the kitchen and me tell me son and husband to open the gate and they went and open the gate”.
Bacchus said she suddenly heard someone with a “soft voice” telling her husband to warn her not to move or scream. Upon turning around, she said she saw a masked man standing with a gun to her husband’s head. She said, the gunman warned her once more not to scream or move.
“I hear sounds outside the house and then I think is more a them”, she said.
At this point, the woman said the gunman started to kick her husband after which he became unconscious and fell to the ground.
“Them still kicking he and I bend down and say man why y’all beating he take wah y’all want and go long”.
However, the woman said when she stooped down in an attempt to protect her husband, the gunman then started to kick her in her face repeatedly. “Then he ask for the bangle and the money, I tell he me son gon give the money wah deh in the shop in the bag and he say them want the one in the wardrobe too”, she explained.
Bacchus said she insisted that the money in the shop was all they had at home.
“He tell me take out the bangle and it take long to come and then it ain’t come out and he take me hand and take it out”.
Bacchus’s 11-year-old son and her brother were held by one bandit armed with a gun and cutlass outside of the kitchen where Bacchus and her husband were. The lad said that although the bandit had a gun to his head and a cutlass “tuck in he sleeve”, all he could do was beg for them to stop hitting his parents inside the kitchen.
The family relayed that the men then ventured to their upstairs after leaving his mother and father in the kitchen and carried out a search. According to Bacchus her oldest and youngest sons were sleeping, however, the elder of the two said when he heard the commotion downstairs he immediately hid himself and brother in the upper flat of the house.
After the bandits could not find any cash in the upper flat of the house, they returned downstairs took the bag which was in the shop with the money and made good their escape.
Meanwhile, Bacchus’s sister-in-law, who resides next to her was returning home from work during the invasion, when one of the gunmen who was seemingly the “lookout” attacked her.
Yadmattie Seegolam, also known as “Seeta”, 40, said she was walking through the track which leads to both her and Bacchus’s house, when one gunman suddenly jumped out at her.
“He say walk and shut you mouth before me chop you up. He bring me till by me door and me go in and bolt the door quick and lef he outside”.
The division’s lawmen have since launched an investigation.
