A pandit and his family were terrorised and robbed by five armed bandits as they were preparing for morning prayers at the Letter Kenny, East Berbice, Corentyne home.
Bisoondat Rampersaud, a Hari Krishna priest, said at about 05:30h, he was getting ready for mandir when he felt someone grab him and place a metal object to his side. He said the bandit was armed with a gun and ordered him into his daughter’s bedroom.
According to Rampersaud, three other men – two armed with cutlasses and the other with a gun – also followed them into the room. The still shaken man said that one of the bandits grabbed his 14-year-old daughter, who was still sleeping, by her neck and demanded cash and jewellery.
He added that the bandits said if he did not hand over the cash and jewellery, they will kill his daughter. He father related that fearing for his child’s life, he handed over $60,000 and a cellular phone.
“They said give we the money and gold or we gun kill she,” the man recalled, adding that having handed over the cash and phone, the bandits were not satisfied and continued to threaten to kill his daughter.
Unaware of what was happening in the house, Rampersaud’s wife, Pravanie Persaud, was praying at her alter which is in the yard.
Speaking with the media, Persaud said she heard her daughter scream and rushed to see what was happening. She recalled that as she made her way to her daughter’s room, she was confronted by one of the gunmen. She said the men demanded more valuables and she handed over US$150 and a quantity of jewellery. The woman recalled that the men still unsatisfied with the loot, gun butted her. She said she screamed for her neighbours, causing the men to grab a flat screen TV and escaping.
Persaud said the Police arrived a short while after the bandits escaped. She said the men entered the house through an opened door, while one stood guard in the street.
