Bandits give victim medication after he complained of heart pain

Feb 24, 2020 News

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In quite an interesting account of an armed robbery that took place at Plot 8 Co-op Scheme, Tain Settlement, Port Mourant, the victim, a pensioner, told Kaieteur News that during the time when the men were in his house, he complained to them of heart pain and asked them to give him his medication.

One of the bandits stopped ransacking the place and got the victim his tablet. “He even gave me the tablet that had to go under my tongue,” the pensioner said.
William Venkatasammy, 73, who retired from the Guyana Revenue Authority many years ago, said the robbery took place around 8:00 pm, Friday. He explained that a few hours earlier, he heard his dogs that were in their kennel barking.
He got up with his torchlight to check but saw nothing.
According to the pensioner, his vision is not 100% but he can still see and so after making checks, he went back to his room.
Soon after, his maid arrived to do house cleaning and other chores as she normally would each day.
He would normally padlock his gate and would venture down to open with the keys when someone arrives.
He explained that not long after closing back the gate, he heard a male calling at the gate and so he went back down and was met by a man who he described as being middle-aged, wearing a dark-coloured hoodie with a modified cutlass in hand.
Venkatasammy said he recalled the man asking him for “a small work”. The pensioner added that the man managed to convince him that he really needed the job and so he told him to trim some of his plants for him and he would pay him $1500.
The man agreed and the victim called on his maid to hand over the keys to open the gate and let him in.
The ex-GRA employee said within minutes, he felt something bracing his neck and a voice that said “Don’t move!” Another man appeared.
At that point the man, whom he let in, went over to the maid who was also downstairs and held her hostage. Both men demanded that they walk to the house.
“They said ‘Let’s go upstairs,’ but like the people kinda got an understanding and realise that I sickly because the man dem ain’t rough me up and so on. They help me up the stairs and so. He tell me to tek my time and so on,” Venkatasammy said.
He disclosed that after they ventured upstairs, they tied him and the maid hands behind their backs with a zip-strap and they told him to sit on the chair. During that time, the maid was begging the men not to kill her but they dealt several lashes to her head with a gun.
Venkatasammy said they then began to demand that he hand over his jewellery and cash but he told them that he hadn’t any.
However, the men were not satisfied with that so they began to ransack the building.
The victim said that the middle room in his house is always locked but one of the men began to kick open the door.
He said he told them not to kick it, that “the key is right here, open it”.
He explained that in that room was his licensed shotgun with cartridges in a modified gun holder along with a bag of some tools. They took that. The pensioner said that they then went to his bedroom and began to search his drawers and in one of those drawers, he had $100,000 Guyana currency, US$300 and TT$100. They took that.
He also said that there was another $100,000 that he had tucked beneath some documents in a drawer in the hall. The intruders found that as well.
A Gateway laptop worth over $200,000 was also found by the men. According to the pensioner, the perpetrators had plastic bags around their hands to prevent them from leaving fingerprints and they were also wiping everything they touched.
Venkatasammy said while the men were ransacking and bagging the items found, he began to feel a sharp pain to his chest (he suffers from a heart condition) and so he asked the men if they could give him his tablets for the pain.
He said, “The man dropped what he was doing and began to search for the tablet. He found it and brought it and gave me. It had to go under my tongue so he took it and put it under my tongue. He save me life deh although he was stealing from me.”
Venkatasammy said they continued searching but after some time had elapsed, he complained that “my hands catching cramps…”
Since it was tied behind him, one of the bandits then cut Venkatasammy’s hands loose. The men then took the jewellery the maid had on, her cell phone, his cell phone and some other items and they both escaped through the backyard which leads to a back dam location.
He noted, when asked, that his home is not equipped with a surveillance system.
He added that the maid immediately, after the men left, ran out to neighbours to contact the police who arrived shortly after.
Venkatasammy also wanted to make it clear that despite what is being reported in sections of the media that he was beaten, he said at no point was he beaten and at no point did he speak with any reporter for them to gather such information.
Police have since questioned several persons in the area but no one has been arrested.
There are also reports that there was another robbery that said day.

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