A Berbice fishmonger and her family were beaten and robbed early Tuesday morning as her husband left their home at St Magdalene Street, New Amsterdam, to purchase fish.
Cheetranie Tularam, 48, known as ‘Luck’, awoke shortly before 04:00hrs ,and as usual saw her husband off as he departed on bicycle to the Corentyne car park to travel to the Port Mourant to purchase fish, which will be re-sold at the New Amsterdam market.
On hearing an unusual sound, she called out to her husband, and on looking through the back door, saw him slumped on the eastern fence.
The woman recalled that he told her to go inside, but she did not respond quickly to his bidding, as two men, armed with cutlasses, accosted her, with one pulling her into the house.
‘He asked me for the money‘, she recalled,’but I told him, that I did not have any’.
‘I offered to give him the pair of gold bangles I was wearing, but he wanted more.‘
According to her, her attacker was armed with two cutlasses, one in his hand and the other in his waist, and was threatening to ‘chop her up’.
The mother of three recounted to this newspaper that she called for her son ‘Vicky’, who lived on the lower flat of the two storied building, but he did not respond.
Vicky told this reporter that he heard his mother’s cries for help, but was prevented from venturing out, after his wife, on looking through the glass window saw, a gunman.
Meanwhile ,Tularam said her daughter, Yogatie Petamber, called Nadia, was in her bedroom, came outside and on seeing the masked bandit, confronted him and pulled off the mask.
The bandit lashed her in the face .
Tularam handed over a bag containing US$400, Cdn$400, which belonged to her daughter whose  overseas- based husband had sent for her . She also handed over jewellery. Her losses totalled some $2M
Meanwhile, her husband Mootee, called Seeram, said they have been living at the location for eight years, and have encountered petty thieves during the period.
“We never had a robbery of this magnitude, we does get the car thieves, removing parts from the vehicle, which would be parked under the house”, he said.
Recounting the ordeal, Seeram said he had moments earlier descended the back stairs with his bicycle which he used to ride to the gas station, a short distance away ,where he would subsequently  join a vehicle that would take him to Port Mourant market.
However, on walking off the eastern stairway, he observed three men standing alongside the wall.
‘Two were armed with cutlasses, while the other was armed with a pistol. The gunman lashed me with the weapon and I sustained injuries to the left ear [pointing to the area which was covered with a band aid], he braced me to the fence, while asking me for money, I said I did not have, he searched my pockets, but found none’.
The men, whom he described as tall, slim youths, split up, with the gunman remaining with him and the others ascending the stairs where they attacked the rest of his family.
The man opined that the gun man ‘ had a soft heart’, and believed that it may have been his’ first hit’, as he did not heed to the instructions of his colleagues in crime, to ‘shoot him’.
He estimated the attack lasted just under ten minutes, before the men jumped over the six foot high concrete fence, escaping on bicycles at almost daybreak.