Bandits attempt to kidnap baby during $$M robbery

-    lack of police response criticised
Despite the commencement of a well publicized security campaign for the city, the lack of police response to a brazen robbery has left a Campbellville businessman frustrated.

Shivnarine Singh, of D. Singh Trading, almost had his three-year-old son kidnapped during the ordeal and to compound matters, several attempts to get the police to respond proved futile.
In fact it was not until a senior officer who is stationed in Berbice was contacted by telephone that the ranks in the city were commanded to respond - but that was after several hours had elapsed.
Singh, a major importer of apples, grapes, carrots and cabbages was in his Delph Street, Campbellville home with his family while his employees were tending to the goods, when three armed bandits struck at around 07:00 hours.

Singh said that the men who were wearing masks appeared to have very good information about his family.
One of the employees, Shane Austin, told this newspaper that he and two other workers were in the yard when the three men entered carrying what appeared to be pellet guns.
“I thought was joke and next thing I know one ah dem with a .32 come in and put it to me waist. He pull me aside and ask me fuh me boss man,” Austin said.
He related that the men ordered him to call his bossman out by rapping on the door that allowed entry into the house.
“He say that how, me bossman got money and he just come fuh tek money. He seh he nah gon shoot me all I gat fuh do is rap pon de door. After I rap bossman come out and he (bandit) run inside. I run to de side and a next one come and put we fuh lie down and put a coat over we and say if we move he gone shoot we. So dat is where we stay till dey done,” Austin explained.
According to Shivnarine Singh, two of the bandits entered his house and one of them placed a gun to his head while two of his children, aged 10 and 7, were made to lie on the ground.
At this time, his wife Nado, who was in another room, heard the commotion and locked the inner door that separated her from the bandits.
“He didn’t scream I just hear a funny noise when the cup dropped from his hand. I run and I lock the other door from inside,” Nado Singh told Kaieteur News.
Her husband tried to force his way into the room too, but by then she had already shut the door and turned the key.
She said that the bandit managed to kick the door open and confronted her with her husband who was being held at gunpoint.
“He ask me to give whatever I got and I cooperate because I know what could happen,” Nado Singh told Kaieteur News.
The bandits took the couple upstairs and relieved them of two canisters of cash and a significant quantity of jewellery. But still they were not satisfied.

“He started to scramble the lil child and said that I could raise some money fuh this afternoon (Tuesday), he will take the child as ransom. He promise we he wouldn’t do we anything. I said I don’t have more money, whatever we using is money from the bank. He was pulling the child one hand and I was holding the other hand. I said, ‘no, don’t take him, I give you everything’. After the baby started crying and he let go,” the businessman’s wife recalled.
The businessman stated that throughout the ordeal the men kept talking about him and his family’s personal life as if they knew them for quite some time.
He said that when the gunmen left, he emerged from his house only to see that his employees were still lying on the ground and crying.
But perhaps the most worrying thing for him was the lack of police response to his plight.
“I am just thinking about selling out and migrating.”
Singh said that he called the police 911 hotline and relayed some information to a female rank. When he realized that no one was coming he personally went to the Kitty Police Station and reported the matter but the police still did not show up until four hours later.

He had to resort to calling a friend of his, Assistant Commissioner George Vyphuis all the way up in Berbice for assistance.
“The man had to start behaving bad. He is till in Berbice at a meeting and he stopped the meeting and tried to get them in charge to ‘get they behind down here’. I hear that was how he was talking to them on the phone.”
“When Mr. Vyphuis called he gave them the direction of the place. Imagine he tell them he could leave Berbice and come and find the place faster than them. The man was mad,” Singh told this newspaper.
As for his children they were so traumatized that they ran and hid when the police eventually arrived.
But up to midday when this newspaper visited the scene no detective had gone there to investigate.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009