Crabwood Creek (CWC) businessman Hareshnarine `Chinee' Sugrim of Sugrim Industries is angry over statements made by the police that the shooting incident at his son's home on Thursday morning "may have been drug-related."

He maintained that they have never been involved in drugs and is calling on the police to retract the statement. He said the family is still highly traumatized by the ordeal and they were shocked to see in the papers on Saturday that the police had linked the attack on his son's house to drugs.

According to Sugrim, "Those are damaging remarks and it would tarnish our reputation. We don't feel good at all by what the police said. How do they know that? Let them produce the evidence."

He said instead of associating the family with drug dealings the police should be out trying to find the bandits. He is still convinced that the gunmen were bandits because his son "had no problems with anyone."

"I feel the bandits wanted to hold my son hostage for me to pay them a big ransom. But maybe they get angry because they couldn't find him so they decide to shoot up all over and destroy everything," he told this newspaper yesterday.

 

The businessman said that even though the army is in the area they are not doing what the residents expect of them. "They should have been patrolling the waterfront because the bandits threatened to come back. But we don't even see them [the army]; we don't know what they doing."

AK-47s, property of the Guyana Defence Force

 

Further he asserted, "Such a big shooting take place here with AK-47s and so and the administration is not doing anything about it. To me the guns that the bandits use belong to the government."

He is calling on the government to give permission to the businesspersons of CWC to form themselves into groups and acquire high-powered weapons to protect themselves.

He also said government should purchase helicopters and equip the force with more effective weapons to fight this type of crime.

Around 12 heavily armed gunmen stormed the home of Shamnarine Narine, 35, and discharged close to 200 bullets in the house and around the yard. They destroyed several items in the house including a television set, a Lexus and four other vehicles.

During a desperate search for the family the gunmen were heard shouting, "leh we find them and shoot them. We ain't going till we ain't find them. Check the ceiling and see if them in there."

They fired shots at the ceiling but the young businessman who is associated with Sugrim Industries, his wife, Sharmila and their two daughters, ages 13 and eight were hiding in a washroom in the house.

Persons said a van dropped off the 12 gunmen who ripped apart the barbed wire above the concrete fence and entered the yard. Five of the men remained in the yard, shooting non-stop and communicating on radio sets.

The others cut their way into the house through a grilled window after efforts to shoot down the steel door failed. Rapid gunfire erupted during the ordeal which lasted close to two hours without the police responding. After unsuccessful efforts to find the family the bandits set two sections of the house on fire.

Residents said they made several calls to the police who were heading to the scene but were kept at bay due to the extent of the shooting. They felt that the bandits only left the home after they heard the siren from the fire tender that was responding to a call that there was a fire in Narine's home.

Commissioner of Police, Henry Greene told reporters during a press conference on Saturday that members of the Joint Services unit had been dispatched to Berbice to conduct investigations.

He said the police did not know of the shooting at Narine's home and only learnt of it when they saw the fire while on their way to investigate a reported shooting incident at Molsen Creek.

The shooting the commissioner referred to was the gunmen opening fire on a truck, killing 27-year-old Fay Campbell. She was seated between the driver, Mukesh Bridgemohan, 34, and his cousin, Premnauth Sukra, 34, when she was hit in her back. Her head fell back and she appeared to be dead.

Bridgemohan and Sukra were hit in their shoulders and legs respectively. Sukra, who is unable to walk, remains a patient at the Georgetown Public Hospital after being transferred from the New Amsterdam (NA) Hospital.

Bridgemohan and Narine's watchman, Abdool Fazal Ghanie, 50, who was shot in his jaw, were discharged from the NA hospital on Friday. Narine was shot in his leg while in hiding and was treated at the Skeldon Hospital and sent away.

Sugrim had told this newspaper that when he opened the door to see what was taking place one of the gunmen fired a shot at him and said, "Ow Sugrim, come and save your son now."

He said after the bandits fled, he and the neighbours ran over and put the fire out. The family emerged from their hiding place 15 minutes later. (Shabna Ullah)