- men proceeded to sit on Ramona's head

Tie up woman and maid
By Oscar P. Clarke
Bandits robbed a La Union, West Coast Demerara home at gunpoint yesterday morning escaping with over $1M worth of jewellery and an undisclosed sum of cash.
The ordeal lasted around five minutes and saw the two bandits driving off in a dark blue Marino car with taxi registration plates. Family members said the police, stationed not more than three miles away, took almost an hour to arrive. This was after the victim's husband had returned home from his job in the city.
The men arrived at the Lot 6 La Union home shortly after 10.30 am yesterday, tied up the owner and her maid, demanding money and jewellery. The two women along with an infant were the only ones home.

Guns, property of the Guyana Defence Force

A shaken Ramona Shivsankar told Stabroek News that the two men immediately pulled out guns after coming through the front gate and going to an open door on the lower flat of the two-storey home.
The maid, Sharmella Kemraj, was cleaning windows in the bottom flat and immediately alerted her boss about the men.
Shivsankar quickly got up from a bed and headed to the door where the men stopped her. According to the woman one of the bandits asked who was "Shiv wife" before asking where they had got the money.
One of them held her by the throat and dragged her to the upper flat as the other gunmen rounded up Kemraj.
Once upstairs they bound the two women's limbs and mouth with masking tape before repeating their demands for cash and jewellery. Unable to respond, Ramona signalled them in the direction of a locked wardrobe requiring them to further question her about the keys.
They removed the tape from her mouth so she could tell them where the keys were.
As they tumbled up the wardrobe the women were placed to face a wall and told not to look in their direction.
After retrieving the cash and jewellery, one of the men proceeded to sit on Ramona's head while exclaiming, "this is all the money Shiv got?"
The man then pulled out a cellular phone and after dialling several numbers began to report on the heist saying the take had not been enough.
It was during this that the sound of a horn outside got the bandit's attention prompting him to peer out of the front window.
After turning from the window the gunman signalled to his partner, who was hurriedly scouring another wardrobe, that it was time to leave.
They left and the woman fought with her bonds just managing to see the two had driven off in the direction of Vreed en Hoop.
Still bound at the mouth and hands she managed to get downstairs and leave the home where she called a security guard next door. "I trying to tell the guard next door to come and release me hands but he just come to the fence and turn and walk way."
It was a neighbour who had noticed the men's movements and later seeing Ramona's struggles came to help.
Relatives also complained about the police taking long to respond. According to Ramona, while her neighbour was on the line to police at the Leonora station a voice in the background was overheard rudely questioning their decision to contact that station instead of one closer. She said the officer asked several questions which she thought were unnecessary.

Explosive device thrown at fence of Vigilance family
By Andre Haynes
A family is now considering moving from their Vigilance home of ten years following an early morning attack on Wednesday during which a device detonated outside the fence of their home.
A loud blast shortly after 1 am on Wednesday morning awoke members of the Khan family who live at Lot 6 First Street, Vigilance, adjoining Brushe Dam, Friendship, from where the device is believed to have been hurled.
The device apparently exploded on impact, damaging a section of the western fence of the compound, and scattering debris onto the roof of the house belonging to farmer Nazir Khan and his family.
Khan told Stabroek News that the discharge immediately woke them all up and they gathered in the living room, all terrified of what would happen next.
Shortly after, he looked outside and saw no one, though he spotted a patrol belonging to the Guyana Defence Force (GDF), stationed a few feet south of his home. He said a soldier was walking towards the blast site.
But not knowing what had happened because of the darkness, he said the family went back to bed.
It was not until the next morning they discovered the damage. There was a crater, 2 feet deep and 3 feet wide, one foot away from the fence of their yard, filled with water from a drain located nearby. Three paling staves had been blown from the fence. Debris also flew 20 feet onto the roof of the house.
After GDF ranks were alerted to the find, bomb experts drained out the water from the crater and recovered fragments of the device. The scene was later visited by ranks of the Vigilance Police Station.
Nazir Khan and his son, Shazad said this incident had the family - already the victim of one armed attack - seriously contemplating leaving their home.
In July three gunmen invaded the home and escaped with over $100,000 after violently assaulting Khan's son and two others.
The house looks as if it is in the final stages of construction and according to Khan it has been that way. He said the decision to neither paint the house nor make any further improvements was intentional because it would signal that the family had money and make them a target of bandits.
As a result of attacks there are only three families left in the area, the others have either sold their homes and fled or torn down the structures to rebuild elsewhere. "You see that house over there," the elder Khan said while pointing to a one-storey flat a short distance away, "... by tomorrow that going to break down because the man don't want to live here anymore.."
Prior to the stationing of a GDF patrol nearby, Shazad related that attacks were frequent, primarily during the day. He said the army patrol had brought some relief and the army's response time was good but attacks still continued. Those families left lock their gates by 4:30 pm.
And coupled with other frequent attacks in the backlands, where they do their farming, it has proved a constraint for the Khans to earn a living as they can only do half a day's work.
Khan's daughter Shanaz and her husband, were forced to move into her father's house along with their five-year-old son Nazir following an attack last year. The woman had been living not too far from her father at Lot 13, Vigilance South, when they were attacked by gunmen who attempted to abduct Nazir and set Shanaz alight after dousing her with kerosene.
"As long as you live here you got to expect to dead anytime," the woman said.
For the Khan family the only alternative lies in moving to relatives in Annandale, which they acknowledge might prove worse given the frequent attacks on villagers there. "I have to look and see if the government can give me a house lot somewhere," Khan said.