Four men, including one armed with what appeared to be a submachine gun, robbed a Parika, East Bank Essequibo bar and almost a dozen patrons on Friday night.
An undisclosed amount of cash was taken in the attack, which was committed just after 11 pm and lasted for approximately five minutes.
A witness told Sunday Stabroek that the man armed with the high-powered weapon entered the bar and immediately went to retrieve the cash from behind the counter, while three others robbed the customers of cash and other valuables.
“This thing was like a movie. They just walk in, jump over the counter, take the money, jump out back and walk away. It was so fast. I never experienced this,” Basmattiee Seosankar, the mother of the proprietor of the Fresh Bar, told Sunday Stabroek.
Seosankar said she was sitting in the shop when she observed the first man walk into the bar with a “long gun” by his side. She said a second person entered behind the armed man from the side entrance and two others entered from the front entrance.
Seosankar said the man armed with the gun walked straight to the counter and pushed away the customers before jumping over and gun-butting her son, who was behind the bar.
“Them hit meh son and he fall and I see them give he two stomp on his back and the man with gun collected the canister with money and then he went through the door behind the counter that had another canister of money from the casino game and he collect that [and] give the other man with he,” the mother related.
She further said that while the lone gunman was retrieving the cash from her son, his accomplices were raiding the pockets of customers.
After the men collected the cash and valuables from the persons in the bar, they jumped into a waiting car that was parked on the road and escaped.
Seosankar noted that the police responded promptly after the robbery was reported and immediately launched a search for the getaway vehicle.
This newspaper subsequently learnt from police that the car belonged to a taxi driver at Bushy Park, East Bank Essequibo. The men reportedly stole the car and used it for the robbery. Police later found the car abandoned in a street at Ruby, also on the East Bank of Essequibo.
“You work so hard trying to give your family and make your life better but they come and take away everything. We have to thank God we still have life but it is still hurting,” Seosankar lamented.
Up to last evening, Divisional Commander Simon McBean said that no arrest had been made.
