Latest update November 29th, 2024 1:00 AM
Carpenter executed in bed with AK-47
– was asleep with wife and daughter
The normally quiet community of Foulis, Enmore on the East Coast of Demerara was rocked by the Saturday night execution style killing of a 25-year old carpenter.
Vikesh Budhram, of Lot 642 17th Street, Foulis, received a single gunshot wound to the neck from the barrel of an AK-47 assault rifle while sleeping with his reputed wife Basmattie Rambharose and their one-year-old daughter, Rihanna.
Vikesh Budhram and his wife Basmattie in happier times.
From all indications, Budhram’s death bears the hallmarks of an execution since the killers did not demand anything from the family, but fled immediately after the suspected hit.
The incident occurred at about 23:00 hours and although most of the occupants of the house were at home, no one saw the killers apart from Budhram’s wife.
Police in a press release stated that so far their investigations have revealed that Budhram, along with his reputed wife and other family members had retired to bed when she was aroused by the sound of a loud explosion in the bedroom.
She observed two men running out of the room and upon checking found that Budhram had been shot to the right side of the neck.
Investigators believe that the killers gained entry to the two flat house by removing a few louver panes from a window on the bottom flat.
They then proceeded to the upper flat and went straight to Budhram’s room, which is situated at the front of the house, and shot him.
Holding back tears, the dead man’s wife told this newspaper that she, her husband and their one-year-old baby were asleep when the blast from the weapon rudely awakened her.
“I just hear a hard sound and I get up and start to holler. I see two persons run out de room. I hold me daughter and den I shake he (Budhram) and de blood start fuh spray,” Rambharose recalled.
She said that her husband tried to speak to her but could only open his mouth in vain.
The woman added that she called out to neighbours but no one came to her assistance.
She told this newspaper that the men were dressed in black and she did not get a chance to see their faces since they were wearing masks.
The couple have been living together as man and wife for two years and has another daughter; two-year-old Ramona, who was sleeping with her grandmother in another room at the time of the incident.
Investigators said that they recovered a 7.62 shell and a warhead which is used in AK-47 rifles.
But what is baffling them is how the men managed to enter and flee the house without family members noticing them, since according to the occupants of the house, they had secured the property before going to bed.
Dhanmattie Budhram, the dead man’s mother, related that shortly before the shooting she was in the living room downstairs watching television with her granddaughter.
She said that she secured the front door with two bolts and retired to a bedroom in the upper flat of the house.
She had planned to return downstairs to await the arrival of her husband who was out at the time, but she dozed off.
However, the sound of the gunshot awoke her.
“All me hear was a noise and I hear me daughter-in- law hollering. I hear a running in the house and I thought that it was me son running upstairs fuh see wha happen,” Budhram said.
The foot steps she heard were in fact those of the killers making good their escape.
She said that her daughter-in-law called out to her telling her that Vikesh had been shot.
The woman said that by that time her husband had arrived home and enquired what the screaming and hollering was about.
“Me nah see none body,” the woman said.
When she eventually went into her son’s room, she saw him lying on his bed and upon checking said she saw a huge hole in his neck with blood pouring from it.
The woman said that the now dead man was her eldest son and the best of her four children. She described him as always friendly to everyone.
The dead carpenter’s father Ganesh Budhram told this newspaper that upon arriving home he noticed the front door of the bottom flat open and heard screaming.
Upon entering his son’s room in the upper flat he saw Rambharose hugging her husband’s lifeless body.
“All me see he get a hole in he neck and dem ah cry,” the elder Budhram told Kaieteur News.
He too said he did not see the killers.
Police believe that after killing Budhram, the gunmen fled west into the neighbouring village of Dazelle Housing Scheme, Paradise.
They are trying to establish a motive for the killing, since Budhram was described by everyone as a hardworking, peace-loving individual who had no known problems with anyone.
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