Latest update April 10th, 2025 12:07 AM
Mother burnt to death after bandits set house alight
– son makes daring escape
Police are investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of Anita Baichan, 49 years, of Hope, West Coast Berbice, who perished in a fire at her home about 02:30hrs on Sunday January 03, 2016.
Initial investigations indicate that two men armed with cutlasses entered the home and held up Anita Baichan and her son Moshim Khan, 28 years, and demanded cash and jewellery.
The perpetrators were given $30,000 but kept demanding more valuables.
Having not received anything further from the victims, the men duct taped the hands, feet and mouths of the victims and set the house on fire before escaping.
Moshim Khan managed to roll out of the building but subsequent efforts, with assistance from neighbouring residents, failed to save his mother Anita Baichan.
The injured Moshim Khan
he burnt out house where Baichan and her son resided.
Khan, who was struck about his body with a cutlass during the incident, has been hospitalized at the Fort Wellington Hospital.
The injured Khan gave reporters a horrifying account of what transpired.
He said he was asleep when the two masked men entered the two story house by removing a part of the grill work at one of the windows in the bottom flat. One of the men carried a cutlass and the other two knives.
After waking Khan and his mother they demanded money and jewellry and were given cash and about $80,000 worth in silver jewellry.
The intruders then tied both Khan and his mother with duct tape which they found in the house.
“First they use she jersey to tie both ah we but my sister is a teacher so she had the duct tape among her things. They tie we foot, we hand and put it over we mouth and search the whole house,” Khan reported.
The men continued to demand more valuables.
Investigators go through the rubble in search of Baichan’s body.
According to Khan, who received two chops to his face, he was forced to suck one of the bandit’s toes as they tried to punish him for not telling them how they can get more valuables. His mother was also beaten with the broadside of a cutlass.
Neighbours heard her begging.
“They tell we that they going to leff now, and get the kero (kerosene oil) and match and tell we that they gon bun down the house and bun we up. Me hear dem gone and dem go way with me bicycle…”
Immediately afterwards, the sound of fire was heard and in desperation, Khan and his mother, despite being bound, tried to make it out of the bedroom. He led the way as they inched to the door with time running out.
“Me end up roll down the step by me head because ah deh tie up, and the door was just four feet away, so I try come out and try rubbing the duck tape on the concrete to cut it… by the time I get loose, I couldn’t do nothing; Mummy dead,” he explained with tears in his eyes.
Lomattie Davie Luther, the dead woman’s daughter, is a teacher at the Bath Primary School.
Luckily she was on vacation when the horror hit her now destroyed home.
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