Thieves raid homes in Crane scheme
Stabroek News
May 9, 2003
Thieves robbed two families in Crane Housing Scheme on the West Coast Demerara earlier this week, carting away a quantity of household articles, cash and jewellery.
In the first attack, which occurred on Sunday evening, Anita Persaud and her family, whose home is situated at 137 Crane Housing Scheme, narrowly escaped an encounter with the bandits.
Persaud said she, her husband and children were out at the time the men broke into her home, but had returned home while the assailants were still there. Instead of entering the premises, the quick-thinking woman took refuge at a house nearby and sent to call her husband.
"I went out at about 6:30 [pm]...to my sister-in-law and my husband leave the house at about 7:30 [pm]. Me nah feel nice, but me spend some time...Me leave there about [8:45 pm] to go home, as we go, I tell [my daughter] look yuh father deh by yuh auntie, call he...[because] we had blackout," the woman explained. The sister-in-law whom Anita had visited was the widow of Ramnauth Persaud, the cambio employee who was shot dead in a brazen robbery attack on Regent Street last year.
The woman said when she got to her home, she noticed a young man from the village standing on her bridge. At the time, he pretended to be calling out to the neighbour's grandson. Anita Persaud said she did not pay the young man any notice, but went into her dark yard and was about to open her front door when her daughter asked, "How daddy go take out all de window pane?"
The woman said she immediately sensed that bandits might still be in her home, so she rushed over the road to another house and asked whether anyone had seen anything. She said by that time, the young man on her bridge had vanished.
Persaud said when her husband arrived they entered the dark house together and realized that everything was in disarray.
"I feel around in de dark and I feel meh TV gone, de transformer for de fridge... meh jewels, money - over $45,000 - meh gas bottle done tek off and deh by the door. We light a lamp and call out for 'Thief!' but no neighbours ain't come...my small daughter 'Best Student' trophy gone, meh husband lunch bag with all he important papers, two speakers for the tape...they carry 'way things from meh kitchen," the anguished women told this newspaper.
In the wake of the robbery, the woman said she had also found a makeshift dagger that the thieves had left behind in the house.
"I work hard for everything. Right now I don't have money to pay the bank. All of that they carry...that night me ain't even had a dollar to go to the [police] station," the mother of three lamented.
She said the following morning, the police from Vreed-en-Hoop station took her windowpanes into custody to dust for fingerprints, but up to yesterday she was unable to contact the investigating ranks to find out what was happening.
According to Persaud, on Tuesday night thieves were again in the village, this time they attacked another family living not far from her. Meanwhile, she said, the police are hunting for the young man who was on her bridge the night of her robbery. He has not been seen since. (Kim Lucas)
