Jewellery, cash taken as armed bandits invade Corentyne home

An overseas-based Guyanese was robbed on Thursday evening when four armed bandits invaded a Corentyne home and carted off US currency, jewellery, and other valuables.
During the robbery, the persons in the household were held at gunpoint.
Two of the men were armed with handguns, one with a knife and the other with a cutlass.

Guyana Times was told that the men were all wearing masks when they entered the yard at Sharpel Street, Rose Hall Town, Corentyne, Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne).
Reports are that the bandits scaled the back fence of the yard to gain entry to the property. At the time there were five adults and four children under the house socialising.
Overseas-based Guyanese, Rashad Singh, 62, who arrived in the country on Sunday for a five-day stay, was in a hammock when the bandits pounced on the family.
Speaking with this publication, Oumawattie Khuldith said she left her husband and two neighbours conversing and went upstairs to shower.
According to the woman, she was by her bedroom window when she saw someone jump over the back fence.
“I pull the window blind to lock the window and there is a guy on the fence about to jump into the yard. I did not think about robbery, so I asked him what he was coming into the yard for and I told him to come off of the fence,” the woman related.
She said just as she shouted at the intruder get off the fence, she realised that someone had already made their way into the yard.
Khuldith said she immediately alerted her husband that thieves were in the yard.
Her husband, Ryan Rupert, said when he was alerted, he armed himself with his neighbour’s walking clutch and moved toward the side of the house.
“By the time I reached the corner, one of them reach already and he point the gun to me; I raised the clutch to lash him, but he already had the gun pointing at me, so I could not lash him with the clutch,” the man related.
At the time, Singh was lying in a hammock while his cousin Chandrawattie Doodnauth and her husband Tariq were seated nearby. Singh was gun-butted and a knife was placed to his neck as the bandits demanded that he hand over his keys.
In recounting the ordeal, Doodnauth said, “We could not escape to go nowhere. They told us not to move or they will kill us. We all get scared and they put all of us to lie down.”
Her husband, who has an injured leg and uses a clutch to walk, said that he was kicked while one of the bandits rested his foot on his face as he fell to the ground and told him not to move.
Meanwhile, Khuldith armed herself with a piece of wood and went downstairs hoping to confront the bandits.
“I picked up the ‘knock wood’ and run downstairs and when I come through the kitchen door, one of them was standing in the walkway out with a sword knife. I say if I run up to him and knock him with the wood, it would assist the others and one of them could get up and help. I did not know that some of them had guns and that it was four of them. They had put my husband to lie on the ground and he tell me not to do it, because they have guns. So, I drop the wood and tell the man with the sword-knife that ‘I sorry’,” the woman said.
The bandits asked about who was the foreigner as they took away everyone’s cell phones and jewellery, and then took Khuldith and her two children into the house while one of them guarded the others.
She was asked to show them the room in which Singh was staying.
“They keep asking me which is the foreigner’s room. They tell me if I don’t give them all of the gold and all of the money that they would kill me,” Khuldith related.
The mother of three said she was wearing some artificial gold jewellery and she took it off and gave it to the bandits.
She said they ransacked Singh’s room, taking important documents in addition to valuables.
“My son see that they had a gun to my head and a knife to my neck and he tell them not to do his mother nothing. He was crying and begging them not to do me anything…,”  Khuldith said.
The men carted off seven cellular phones, some $300,000 worth of jewellery and about US$1600 along with an undisclosed amount of local currency. They also took Singh’s passport, which was later recovered.
Police have since arrested four persons as the investigation continues. (G4)