Armed bandits during the wee hours of yesterday attempted to rob a Johanna North, Black Bush Polder farmer and his family.
After the farmer refused to drop his cutlass, the bandits began to shoot at him and his teenage daughters.
Herman Roopnarine, 40, of Lot 35 Johanna North, Black Bush Polder, explained that around 1.20 am, he and his wife were asleep in their room, while his daughters, ages 16 and 17 years, were asleep in the room next door when they heard a sudden noise coming from their stairs. “I stand up and peep and I see how them man [bandits] take a wood and knock out a window and push down we set chair wah went in front the window. So when one a them been deh for come in, all abie start holla and me pick up me cutlass in me hand.”
He said the bandits while standing on their stairs and peeping through the window ordered him to drop the cutlass and lie down.
However, Roopnarine said, he stood behind his bedroom door and refused to do as they asked. “Them start shoot pon me and then them girls holla in them room them start shoot pun them. Them a tell me put down the cutlass and lie down and that them want the gold and the money,” he relayed.
According to the farmer, his wife then began to plead with the bandits, telling them that they were a poor family, as such they did not have any gold or money in hand.
The man further added, that his sister and her son reside opposite them and after they heard Roopnarine and his family screaming, his nephew immediately rushed out to offer assistance but was met with a hail of bullets. “When the boy run out, them start shoot he and the boy had to run in the bush and hide,” Roopnarine added.
Meanwhile, the annoyed man explained, that since he first heard the noise and saw someone breaking their window they started to phone the Mibicuri Police Station. “All the time wah them deh deh abie a call the police but them police say them na get vehicle fa come, that them na get nothing fa come now.”
The police only arrived at Roopnarine’s house around 8 am yesterday to take his statement. “When you need them help you can’t get them and that is the Whim Police come this morning 8 o clock. If them been come them coulda catch somebody or something, them bandits deh long a walk about,” the farmer complained.
Meanwhile, a short distance away from Roopnarine’s house, another rice farmer, Lennox Ramcharran, and his family were robbed and beaten hours before bandits attempted to rob Roopnarine.
Stabroek News was told yesterday that no arrests had yet been made in any of the matters.
