Dead guards tell no tales

Sep 14, 2014 Features / Columnists, Murder and Mystery

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By Michael Jordan

The tracker dog led the policemen down the Ogle Aerodrome runway. To the journalists looking on, the dog was of no

distinguishable breed, but the detectives appeared confident that the animal they had trained would lead them to the suspects who had snuffed out the lives of two defenceless men. They were seasoned police ranks, hardened by a crime wave that showed no sign of abating. But surely the detectives had hoped that April 17, 2006, would have been a quiet day.
After all, it was Easter Monday. Even cops like to laze in the sun and watch the girls, and try their hand at raising stubborn kites. But their Easter plans were ruined just before daybreak, when an Air Services Limited employee arrived at the Ogle Aerodrome at around 05:30 hrs and saw something that filled him with dread. Two radio sets and two batons lay on the ground. He knew that they belonged to the night-shift guards, but the two guards were nowhere in sight. The employee immediately summoned other staffers.
Venturing further into the Air Services Limited (ASL) premises, the staffers eventually came upon a sickening sight. The bound, gagged and battered body of one guard lay on the washroom floor. There were signs of a struggle and a toilet bowl had been yanked out. His companion, also bound, gagged and battered to death, was found in the hangar reserved for Air Services Limited aircraft.
The victims were Hemraj Saroop, 60, of Lot 33 Industry, East Coast Demerara, and Chandradeo Arjun, 50, of Crown Dam, Industry.
They’d had Easter plans, too.
Saroop, who had two children, was a certified electrician who moonlighted as a security guard to bring in extra money. He’d left for work on Easter Sunday in his Toyota Carina. There was no sign of the car.
Arjun, who had also left for work on Easter Sunday, had asked his wife to prepare food for the following day when he would carry their two children to fly their kites.
An autopsy would later reveal that Saroop had been strangled with a rope, while Arjun was strangled manually.
From all indications, the men were slain between 22:00 hrs on Sunday and 05:00 hrs on Easter Monday. They had still been alive when the Chief Security Officer had checked on them earlier in the night.
A third guard who was to have worked the night-shift had reported sick.
By the time relatives of Saroop and Arjun arrived, the investigators had cordoned off the crime scene, while porters from Lyken Funeral Parlour had wrapped the bodies.
Ignoring the pleas of the police and Air Services Limited officials, Saroop’s wife, Leila, clambered over the barrier to get a glimpse at her slain husband. She got one look at the body before fainting.
Checking the scene with detectives, the Air Services officials discovered that the killers appeared to have had more than just a little knowledge about the layout of the company. They also had a key to one of the offices, from which they had stolen a firearm, the computer which controlled the flight simulator, and another computer which monitored the surveillance cameras.

The killers had also gained entry to the accounts office after removing a few window panes. However, they had failed in their attempts to break into a safe containing a substantial amount of cheques accumulated over the previous three days. Evidence at the scene indicated that the robbers had tried to chisel out the safe from the wall in which it was embedded. The bandits had apparently used Hemraj Saroop’s Toyota Carina to transport their loot.
The detectives believed that the killers had come from a nearby burnt canefield, since footprints of burnt ash were visible at the crime scene. It was surmised that they had then entered the ASL premises from an unfenced section of the compound.
Detectives hoped that they would be able to track down the suspects.
One of the police force’s tracker dogs was brought to the scene. The animal led the police ranks to the end of the runway, where it apparently lost whatever scent it had been following.
At around 08:00 hrs the following day, Saroop’s green Toyota Carina, PHH 3445, was found in Drury Lane, near the Campbellville Secondary School. Residents could not recall seeing anyone exit the car.
It was subsequently revealed that security personnel who were stationed at the entrance to the Ogle Aerodrome that Easter Monday recalled seeing Saroop’s car leaving the compound at around 03:00 hrs on the morning that the slain guards were found. It is unclear whether the guards knew how many occupants were in the vehicle.
Police dusted the vehicle for prints, but found no clues to the killers’ identities. They also drew a blank after questioning employees at ASL.
To date, no one has ever been arrested.
“Nothing you nah hear,” Hemraj Saroop’s wife, Leila, had lamented to Kaieteur News. “How they ain’t hold anybody up to now?”
To add to her misery, the 64-year-old widow also alleged that his former employers had offered her a relatively paltry sum as compensation for her husband’s death.
“They offer me $200,000 for that man’s life. How they could (only) give me that?”
But more than anything else, the loved ones of Hemraj Saroop and Chandradeo Arjun yearn to know the identities of the persons who sneaked into the Ogle Aerodrome five years ago and brought them unimaginable grief on Easter Monday.

If you have any information about this or any other unusual case, please contact Kaieteur News by letter or telephone at our Lot 24 Saffon Street, Charlestown location. Our numbers are 22-58452, 22-58458, 22-58465 and 22-58491. You need not disclose your identity.
You can also contact Michael Jordan at his email address: [email protected].

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