– pensioner, granddaughter robbed
A 77-year-old pensioner, along with her granddaughter, were robbed of their gold jewellery after armed bandits invaded their home at Gangaram Settlement in East Canje, Berbice, during the wee hours of Monday morning. Police investigations revealed that the victims were at home when they were aroused, around 01:15 hrs, by the perpetrators who had broken into the house through the louvre windows.

The criminals held them up and took away a quantity of jewellery and escaped. During the robbery, the armed men discharged a round while in the house which struck the roof, and another in the yard while escaping.
When this newspaper visited the scene, the pensioner, Gladys Khan, 77, of Betsy Ground, another East Canje location, said she was visiting her granddaughter for a few days, and was awoken from her sleep by thumping  sounds emanating from outside the house.
Believing that the thud was as a result of the cows which were tied at the side of the house, the elderly woman related that she remained in her bed.
But, minutes later, the door leading to the bedroom in which she shared with her great-grandchildren, was suddenly kicked open, allowing her to see two masked bandits, both of whom were armed.
The gunmen, she said, demanded that she get off the bed, and lie on the floor, before relieving her of her jewellery.
The pensioner, who was visibly traumatised, recalled removing her recently purchased gold bangles, two gold rings and two gold chains, and handing over same to one of the bandits who appeared to be in his early twenties.
After their request for money went unheeded, the two invaders then went to the second bedroom, in the two-flat house in which Parbattie Shabana Sampat, also called ‘Moonu’, along with her husband  Bharrat Puran, slept. Whilst there, the bandits discharged a round, before dragging the mother of two into the living room where they forcibly removed from her person five gold rings and a gold chain.
The elderly woman told this reporter, in the absence of her granddaughter, who, along with her husband, had gone to seek medical attention, that the thieves were unsuccessful in removing a pair of gold jingles, which her granddaughter wore.
She explained that the jewellery was a gift, from her, to her granddaughter while the latter was very young and had less weight.
Over the years, Khan said her granddaughter gained much weight, which made the jewellery difficult to remove.
The pensioner recalled that she pleaded with the bandits not to break her granddaughter’s hand, while her husband also begged them not to do his wife harm.
“Whenever her husband talk or pleaded with them, the bandits would lash him on his head with the gun. They would do the same to my granddaughter’s face,” Khan recalled.
She said the ordeal came to an abrupt halt after another bandit, who was on the zinc shed outside the house, told his two accomplices inside that he saw ‘a lighted vehicle’ approaching.
Khan said the criminals quickly exited the house, through the window, unto the front steps which bore a shed, before jumping over the locked gate.
Police, she said, came after the thieves had fled.
Meanwhile, the police in Berbice are continuing their investigations into another robbery committed last Saturday night at Edinburg Village, East Bank Berbice, where Tassa Farley, and Renatha Knights, both of whom are clothes vendors, were robbed of two gold chains, 10 gold rings, a silver ring, one ‘Black Berry’ and one ‘Samsung’ cellular phones, and $34,000 in cash.
Damien James, of Lot 50 Stanleytown, who, minutes before, had driven the women to their destination, was also robbed of a gold chain, an ‘LG’ phone, and $27,000 cash, along with his motor car.
However, following a report at Central Police Station, the car was subsequently recovered.
James and Knights, both of whom had resisted the attackers, were beaten by two masked men, who were armed with a gun and a cutlass.
The Police are investigating.