A ROUTE 41 minibus was yesterday morning discovered in a lonely street in ‘E’ Field (red road) Sophia partly stripped of its parts. The bus was reported stolen on Monday morning after the person to whom it was entrusted woke up to discover the vehicle missing from his yard.Wilbert Archer told the Guyana Chronicle that he parked the bus in the yard at approximately 03:00hrs on Monday morning at South Ruimveldt, but later discovered it missing when he woke up to pray and found the gates to his property wide open.
He related that the bus was the last of three vehicles to be parked in the yard. The man said that he immediately contacted the owner of the vehicle and they visited the East La Penitence Police Station where the matter was reported.
The vehicle, BRR 2860, is registered to one Weston Mervyn Pickering of Republic Drive, Beterverwagting, East Coast Demerara. However, his mother is said to be the person taking care of that and other vehicles which the family owns.
When this newspaper visited the Turkeyen Police Station where the bus was taken after it was discovered, it was observed that several fixtures including its headlamps, mirrors and other items from inside were missing. Those parts however are said to be engraved with the registration number of the vehicle.
One woman from ‘E’ Field Sophia, reported to this newspaper that she saw the minibus in her street on Tuesday and thought that it belonged to someone in the area until she began hearing rumours that the vehicle was stolen. The woman said that the bus was parked in front of the home of another resident and persons were stripping it of its parts.
The police were then informed and before they could have arrived at the location, persons had already made off with some of the items they removed from the vehicle and the police immediately moved to have it transported to the station and the owners were informed.
Information reaching this publication suggests that the bus was stolen and vandalised by a relative of the owner of the bus, who has a family feud with another relative. This is not the first time that the family has suffered damage to and loss of their vehicles.
On Wednesday, police sources indicated that the matter is still being investigated, although they had not been provided with the names of possible suspects up to press time. Also on Wednesday, the owners of the minibus contracted a towing truck and removed the vehicle from the Turkeyen Police Station over to the East La Penitence Police Station where it was photographed and fingerprinted. The police are also looking to see if any of the prints will match the ones lifted from another vehicle owned by the family which was vandalised sometime back and from which the computer box was removed,