The remains of a car that was hijacked in July at Friendship, East Bank Demerara were found on Friday along a trail off the Linden/Soesdyke Highway leading to St Cuthbert’s Mission.
The stripped car was said to have been found by police officers from the Cove & John Police Station.
Stabroek News spoke with the owner of the car (licence number HD 338) Tyrone Persaud, a taxi driver. He related that he was hired by a man minutes after 1pm on July 11, who lured him to a road leading to the Friendship Squatting area where his car was hijacked at gunpoint and he was robbed of his personal possessions.
According to Persaud who is currently attached to the S&R Taxi Service in Grove, he was hired by a man to take him to Friendship. The man, he said, was using a pair of crutches as one of his legs appeared to have been amputated.
Persaud recalled that on his way to the requested destination, his passenger asked him to stop at a stand outside of a gas station in Friendship to purchase vegetables. The driver remembered hearing the man speaking on the phone and saying that the vendor had no pumpkin and that instead, he was going to buy the boulanger that was available. His passenger, he added, made a second call while they were headed along a road leading to Friendship Squatting Area.
The taxi driver stated that while along the way, his passenger instructed that he stop just as they were passing a man standing along the road. Persaud said he stopped as instructed but as soon as he did, a gun was pressed against his head by a man standing outside of his car. He was ordered to hand over his cellphone and the $8,000 he had on him, which he did.
Persaud noted that at this point he saw another taxi from his base picking up a female passenger, whereupon he grabbed his passenger’s phone and ran to the other taxi. The man said he quickly relayed the incident to the other driver and they attempted to give chase behind his car which had been driven off by the hijackers, but another car that happened to be in front of them was in the process of crossing a bridge and so prevented them from going any faster. The taxi driver said that by the time they got back to the East Bank Public Road, they had lost sight of his car. He noted that persons who claimed to have seen the car, said that it was driven in the direction of Georgetown. The man added that while heading to the city, he saw a police patrol and reported the incident to them. He was taken by the police to the Grove Police Station to make a report.
According to the man, in the process of making the report, he handed over the phone he had snatched from his passenger. The police, he said, told him they would unlock the phone and try to find out who the owner was, but to date he has heard nothing with regard to this.
Persaud pointed out that a CCTV camera caught the same passenger on camera on the day of the incident. The video was shown to the police, but according to the driver, he doesn’t know if the police went looking for the individual.
Then on Friday at 3pm, a call came through to S&R Taxi Service informing them that the remains of the car were found along the trail to St Cuthbert’s. The man said when he arrived at the location, he discovered that his car had been stripped. All that remained were the windows of the doors, 3 seats, the exhaust, the drive shaft, and the rear hub. “I recognise the car as me own because the registration number was on the window plus the S&R Taxi Service logo was on the glass too. They gone with my engine, steering wheel, wind shields and shocks,” Persaud lamented. Nearby the remains of his car, were also parts of a silver Premio car and a Fielder wagon.
Meanwhile, police at the Madewini Police Station have impounded the parts of the three vehicles at the station’s compound along the highway. Persaud said he was allowed to take some of the parts but the police have since held on to the remaining parts of his vehicle, instructing him to call another officer to have the remaining car parts released to him. However, he was unable to reach this officer, which he believes may be as a result of the weekend stepping in but he intends to try again this week. Persaud noted once the parts are released to him, he could sell them to make some money, adding that he has a mortgage among other bills to pay.
