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Simultaneous attacks
Reports indicate that the fiendish attacks began at about 11:30 pm. The reports say that the gang of at least 11 arrived by the ocean and broke up into several units. A shot was heard coming from the direction of the cemetery on the eastern side of the town and this appeared to be the signal for the siege to begin. The men were all dressed in dark-coloured clothing and sported bulletproof vests and AK-47 rifles and handguns.
The raids on the police outpost, the Chinese restaurant nearby and the banks seemed simultaneous. (The police's account of what transpired was different. See story on page 13.) A witness told Stabroek News yesterday, that at about 11:30 pm on Sunday, a policeman from the Rose Hall Police Outpost went to the resturant and asked the owner to come to the outpost. She said shortly after the owner left, about five armed bandits barged into the resturant. They had pulled up in a blue Marino car. The woman said that two policemen from the outpost were with the bandits after apparently being taken there at gunpoint. All the customers were ordered to lie on the floor. The witness said that the bandits kicked open the door to the inner section of the restaurant and ordered her and employees out. They, too, were made to lie on the floor and were stripped of all jewellery.
"They put we flat on the floor to lie down and they strip off all we chain and earrings. They then took all the money in here," the young woman recounted. She estimated that the gunmen carted off close $100,000 cash.
"They point the guns to us and tell we they ent want nobody to identify them," she said. The woman said that the attackers were not masked. Shortly after the bandits left, the restaurant's owner returned and related that he was locked in the cell at the outpost. He related that the bandits also locked one of the policemen in the same cell.
"He had to break out the door and come out," the witness stated. Still somewhat shaken, the woman described the ordeal as "miserable". She said apart from robbing the proprietor of his gold chain, the bandits did not attempt to harm him.
A long time after the bandits left the eating place, the woman claimed to have heard bullets being fired in the area. It was while a police squad from another part of the Corentyne was responding to the robbery report that Kissoon was shot dead in a withering barrage of gunfire. Kandhai was shot dead shortly after when the 4X4 vehicle he was in was also riddled with bullets. The vehicle was forced to return to the JC Chandisingh School compound where the Congress had been held on Saturday and Sunday. Kandhai was said to be one of the those recently granted scholarships to study medicine in Cuba.
The guards' account
According to reports, two members of the Police's Special Constabulary were in the guard hut at the National Bank of Industry and Commerce (NBIC), and a third was stationed not far away at the Guyana National Co-operative Bank (GNCB) when the bandits launched their attack.
Stabroek News understands that the guards at NBIC were `gaffing' when they saw eight armed men striding rapidly towards them - four on both sides of the road, with Pardat in the middle of the road. Stabroek News understands that one of the guards recognised the policeman and assumed that the others were members of the Target Special Squad as they were attired in black. The bandits began firing shots in the air as they drew closer to the bank. Four of the men then ordered the guards out of the hut at gunpoint. The guards reportedly announced that they, too, were members of the force, but one of the gunmen responded, "Police? We come foh kill f...ing police." One building that was shot at was Imran and Sons opposite the NBIC branch at the corner of Independence Avenue.
The guards were then relieved of their weapons, marched across the road to GNCB, where the other guard had already been attacked and relieved of his firearm. The three guards, along with the Constable Pardat, were taken through Independence Street to the pump station at the back of the village and ordered to lie face down on the ground. The bandits asked what was the distance to the foreshore and then told the three security guards to get up and "Run!" Pardat was later shot and killed in the same area.
One of the three guards, who did not want to be identified, told Stabroek News that some time around midnight, "They attack us, take away the weapons, all that we have... the equipment. They had we in a tight way...They took the radio set."
He said their ordeal lasted about 12 to 15 minutes. During that time, he was not beaten, but he said the noise emitted from the bandits' guns caused his ears to hurt. When this newspaper visited his home yesterday, he had a piece of cotton wool in one of his ears.
"I am not acquainted to the noise from the weapon... They came in shooting in the air," the 33-year-old father of three said.
Prior to the attack on the bank guards, the bandits pounced on a guard at Fogarty's and beat and shot him. He received a grazing wound to the head and is in the hospital recuperating.
On Saturday night, guards at Citizens Bank and Demerara Bank Limited on Camp Street were also shot and injured and relieved of their firearms.
Residents' account
One resident in the area of the pump station said that around 1:20 am yesterday, he heard two shots.
"Me hear de shots fire and then me hear two body pass here. Well fisherman usually pass here de whole night, and after the people pass and talk, me say well, is fisherman... We wake up like 5:30 this morning fo go wuk. When me go, ah see a police in de corner lie down on de ground."
A woman claimed to have seen about 15 men pass her home around midnight.
"They come from de back...15 of them pass. Four with white and the rest with black clothes." That was about half an hour after she heard the shooting. "De four deh in front with the white, and the rest at de back."
Earlier on Sunday night, at about 10 pm, the woman claimed to have seen two men, dressed in black, pass her home.
A pensioner gets a heart attack
Not far from where Pardat was shot, 72-year-old Mohan Latchman and his 65-year-old wife, `Nellie', were asleep when they were disturbed by the rapid gunfire. They clutched each other in fear, but only one of them made it through the night. The man collapsed and died.
At their home yesterday, the grieving widow recounted: "When de gunshot ah go off...a-be two a hold on pon mattie and a-be a scramble one another and sudden the man drop off a me, just so and de man drop dead. Me seh, `Whah! Right away so?' And me no know what to do. Den me call. Me shout [for a neighbour] who get car fo carry dis man [her husband] to the hospital. He answer me. Ah seh, a-be got to go Port Mourant Hospital, but de boy nah come out, because a de confusion and the gunshots pon de road. But by de time 4 O'clock, de man [Latchman] done dead. When me check um pon ah bed, de man done dead..."
The old woman said they heard the shots close to their home at about 1:30 am.
"Me hear plenty [gunshots]. De thing ah come to me like how people does knock pon de water. Like when dem a ketch fish...but me say, `Dem a knock water at dis hour o de night fo ketch fish now man?'" But then the rapid gunfire made her aware that it was a bandit attack. "Me seize meself and de man [her husband] seize pon me [too] and de man go down, but he nah dead right away."
Latchman leaves also to mourn six children.
The watchman is tied up
Sometime during it all, a watchman called `Callo' was tied up by the bandits. But he managed to walk to safety, with his hands still tied behind his back, after the bandits left.
He recounted: "Them come and tie me up and lef and go 'long them way." He could not say how many assailants were there, but at the time, he was relaxing in the watch house close to the pump station. "They tie meh two hand and scotch tape meh mouth. Then they pull out de scotch tape. So me walk come now. Me deh in de watch house lie down, and they [the bandits] walk come up and two guns come through de window. They tear away de mesh and they tell me come out. When me come out, they put de torchlight in me face. Then they tell me turn and when me turn, they wrap de scotch tape fuss pon me mouth," the dimunitive 31-year-old `Callo' stated.
The attack on Happy Shopping Centre
The bandits also broke into the business place of Mohamed Shamshudeen Afiz at 72 Rose Hall Town. According to the man, at around 12:45 pm, his wife, daughter and grandson were sleeping in the first bedroom, when the bandits struck.
"They heard footsteps coming up the steps. They peep through and heard strange people coming up and know is bandits. When they [the bandits] reach up there, they used a chainsaw and took out the wall," the businessman reported. Last Friday night, bandits stormed the home of a businessman at Long Creek and stole four chainsaws.
He further stated: "They [the family members] run in my room. I was sleeping in the back room." He said the women and eight-year-old boy ran through the backdoor and tried to escape, but were captured by the bandits and taken to the back house where Afiz's brother and sister-in-law reside.
"I don't know how long they took to get in, but they get in the house. They shot at the door. They tried to open the door, but they couldn't open the door. There was plenty of gunshots. Bullets like rain. I don't know if they were still shooting in the house, but I can hear sounds of bullets all around the place. The whole thing took about an hour. They [the women and child] were outside and the two bandits got hold of them. They took them over to the other house where my brother living. They did the same thing. They cut the wall and got into his house. They demand money and jewellery and got some money. They hit him. He got a big cut in his head."
Afiz's brother, Mohamed Shaik Hoosein and his wife, Uma, were hospitalised.
The bandits reportedly stole $500,000 from Hoosein and about quarter of a million from Afiz.
"They ransacked the whole house, the three bedrooms, the drawers. I had some money in the back room, about $250,000, that is missing."
Pardat's widow, Tarmattee told Stabroek News that her husband left for work at about 7 pm Sunday and at about 12.15 pm, they started to hear "sheer riddling, riddling all over the place."
She tried to make telephone contact with her husband at the outpost to inform him of the shooting.
"We try to call and when we try to call all whah me coulda hear was de phone scramble like when somebody scramble de phone." After that, she heard nothing else, so she called the Albion Station. The telephones were busy. She and her daughter started to pray while bullets continued firing. She said five bullets hit her home.
There were five bullet holes in the kitchen wall downstairs and three in the wall upstairs, one of which went through the corrugated roof of the external steps.
"It was sheer bullet all the way, right through the whole street like for a whole two hours."
At about 5 am, the woman said she got a call from her husband's colleague who asked her if Pardat had reached home. She told him no and the man reported that bandits went into the outpost and demanded Pardat's jewellery before carrying him away. She called all her children and went to the Albion police station where she was told that her husband was taken to the pump station and shot and killed. Pardat was the father of six.
A female security guard at the Rose Hall market told Stabroek News that she and another guard were confronted by an armed bandit at around 1.30 am. "the man just stood there pointing the gun at us and told about six of his of his colleagues who were all armed to `hurry up'". She then saw the bandits with the guards who were being held hostage walking in front. "About one and one half hour later we saw the guards coming from the direction of the seashore calling out for help. They were taken to the hospital some time later." Seventeen-year-old Royden Wong was shot in his leg when he attempted to peep through his window as the bandits were passing his home.
Residents who live in the reef section of the town say that the bandits entered by the seashore and left the same way. It is likely that they entered at one point and left at another as they had asked for directions to their escape point. Residents of the area were of the view that the criminals had help from within the township. An eyewitness said that the police were hopelessly outgunned by the bandits who had heavy firepower. One bandit had what looked like a telescopic lens on one of the guns.
Yesterday, Stabroek News observed two large bullet holes in one of the walls of the bank. Bullet holes were also in a sign board which is not located far from the bank and the show window for the Courts Furniture House located also just a stone's throw away from the bank had bullet holes. (Additional reporting by Daniel DaCosta)