A Corentyne, Berbice family was beaten by bandits on Wednesday evening during a home invasion.
Reports are that three armed bandits forced their way into the Lot 16 Liverpool, Corentyne, Berbice, Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne) home owned by Sunderlall Ketwaru, called “Vicky” around 18:30h on Wednesday.
His wife, Chobudai Ketwaru, who operates a business, was at home with her 39-year-old son when the men brandishing guns entered the building.
Speaking with Inews, the woman explained that one of the gunmen grabbed her, while another dragged her son into another section of the house.
She said she was pushed onto a chair, choked and hit on the head several times with a gun.
“He ask me for the money, ‘Where is the money, give he the money’ but I couldn’t respond,” she revealed.
According to Chobudai, she was losing her breath and managed to release the tight grip of one of the bandit’s fingers around her throat. The woman explained that after taking a deep breath, she begged to be allowed to go into the kitchen to be allowed to turn off the stove. This, she pleaded with the bandit, could start a fire.
“He grabble me back and ask me ‘where is the money’. So, I told him, ‘come let us go into the shop and see what I could get in the shop’. I go in the shop and go where the cigarette is and passing my hand by the shelf. The same time the rest of them run in the shop and start opening up all the drawers. And then I push the one that was holding me all the time… He get so stupid and I run out”.
She said that she shouted for help as she ran into the yard. The neighbours called the Police.
Meanwhile, her husband, who is a rice framer, said he was on his way home when he saw Police and a crowd at his home.
“I was coming home from the rice field in Black Bush. When I reach, I see a flock of Police in front of my home, so, I run in the house and discovered that they beat my son with a gun and burst his head; he has a few stitches. My wife, they beat her in her head and choke her and my son run across the road where a truck was coming and miss him. My wife run to another neighbour and tell them to call the Police and the Police respond in about five minutes,” the rice farmer said.
The men escaped with $2500, two cellular phones valued at $80,000, a gold chain, along with cigarettes. This newspaper was told that the men were all masked and gained entry by breaking through the back fence and an inner fence around the building.
This is the fifth time bandits have attacked the family. “I applied for a firearm licence and was denied. I need protection. Mr (Khemraj) Ramjattan (Public Security Minister) must help the people. Some people who don’t need firearms have firearms,” Ketwaru said.
Police have since launched an investigation.
