POLICE yesterday said that one of two bandits who had robbed a Better Hope, East Coast Demerara family, shot two women passersby and had hijacked a car was arrested on Mashramani Day after he was cornered in the canefields at Plaisance, East Coast Demerara. At about 12:45 hrs on Thursday, February 23, 2012, meat vendor Naronatie, 49, and her son Rovindra Prashad,29, were at their Better Hope Railway Embankment home when two men armed with handguns confronted them. The men held them up and took away two cell phones and $17,500 before escaping on foot.
Using his motor car, Rovindra Prashad pursued the two perpetrators along the Better Hope Road, causing the men to discharge rounds at him, one of which struck Luchona Beckles, 24, of South Vryheid’s Lust, ECD, to her left thigh as she walked along the Vryheid’s Lust Main Road with her boyfriend on her way to the city for the Mashramani celebrations. At the time, Luchona had observed some men exiting a car and chased after some other men, who discharged the shots.
Eyewitnesses related that the gunmen were chased by several persons and others in a white car, during which they started firing shots indiscriminately in the air.
Joseph Saunders, husband of Annesha Saunders, a teacher at Plaisance Primary School and mother of a five-year-old boy, said that he and his wife were doing some household cleaning for a party to be held on Sunday at their Sparendaam residence when she was shot and injured, at about 13:00 hrs on Thursday.
Saunders added that they had gone to investigate a noise they had heard outside, and had seen some men chasing after two men whom they thought were drug addicts (junkies). He suspected that the men’s pursuers had wanted to beat them, but one of the men pulled out a gun and fired some shots. His wife was shot, and she fell down. She was pregnant at the time, and reportedly lost her baby and had to undergo an emergency operation for internal bleeding.
As the pursuers continued after their quarry, the two men being chased separated themselves from each other. One of the armed men then held up the driver of motor car PNN 7456 on Victoria Road, Sparendaam as the car stopped, and took away the man’s vehicle, which he later abandoned in a canal in the Plaisance Squatting Area as he fled into the canefields.
Police ranks who had responded to the report cordoned off the area and eventually arrested the suspect.  A .32 Taurus pistol with one live round was recovered from him. The suspect has been admitted a patient under guard at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), for medical treatment to injuries he is suspected to have received during his escape bid.
Contrary to reports carried in sections of the media yesterday, police say, the suspect was not shot by the police.  His accomplice managed to escape.
The two injured women were taken to the GPHC, where Annesha Sanders was admitted, while Luchona Beckles was treated and sent away. Investigations are continuing.