FOLLOWING the murder of city businessman Frank Persaud on Tuesday night, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Law Enforcement), Seelall Persaud, said that the police are awaiting a post-mortem examination, which is scheduled for today, to ascertain the cause of death; since there was no visible sign of injury on the body of the deceased. He noted that investigations have, so far, revealed that it was a “robbery”, but he added that the death of Persaud is being investigated; and based on the results of the autopsy, the police will pursue the necessary course of action.
Persaud added that no one was arrested for the crime up to press time, but the police are following some leads.
Police said that at about 20:30 hours on Saturday, July 31, 2012, three men posing as customs officials entered the home of businessman Frank Persaud, 45, of Bel Air Village, Greater Georgetown.
The men, who had visited the home earlier, demanded to check goods that were in a storage bond, and were accompanied to execute this task by Frank Persaud. The men later called out to Persaud’s wife, Bibi Nalisha Mohamed, and told her that he was calling her. Upon entering the bond with her two-year-old daughter, she and the child were held and tied up with duct tape, during which she observed Frank Persaud lying on the ground covered with a piece of plastic.
The perpetrators then entered the home, ransacked the building, and took away a lap top computer, a quantity of jewellery, and an undisclosed sum of cash before escaping along with a quantity of goods from the storage bond.
Bibi Mohamed subsequently managed to free herself and raise an alarm. Frank Persaud was then taken to the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPHC), where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
Frank Persaud, of Lot One Area ‘L’, Bel Air Village, Greater Georgetown, died while he was being beaten and tortured by three men, who went to his home late Tuesday night under the guise of being customs officials who wanted to check the goods that were stored in a bond under Persaud’s house.
The men bound and gagged him in the bond, then they beat the man’s wife, Bibi Nalisha Mohamed.
The woman, in tears, told the Guyana Chronicle that her husband had just finished exercising in their home gym, located at the back of the yard, when three men who claimed to be customs officers arrived at their gate, and her husband asked her to give him the keys to the gate.
She added that the men entered the premises and asked to inspect the duty slips for goods the family had stored in a bond at the bottom of their house, since they were not satisfied with some thing.
When one of the men told her that her husband was calling her, she went downstairs with the toddler to respond to her husband’s call; and as she entered the bond, she realized something was wrong when she did not see her husband. One of the men then attacked her, taking away her gold anklet, then her daughter, before proceeding to bind her feet and hands.
Mohamed noted that the men also tied her baby’s hands and threw the child at her as they demanded that she hand over the money and jewels in the house. They asked her to comply with their request, assuring her she would not be harmed.
“I told (one of the men) to go upstairs where I had a bag with $100,000, and he went but did not find it at first; and returned to me very upset. They asked me if I was telling the truth, and threatened to kill my daughter because she started to cry loudly.”
Mohamed explained that after the men went back upstairs and looted the place of valuables, including a laptop computer, jewels and money, they hurriedly left; and she managed to free herself after she noticed that her daughter was looking unwell and calls to her husband had gone unanswered.
The grieving woman said that she got up and went looking for her husband, and when she pulled a plastic from the ground, she saw him. She tried to revive him, but he was lifeless; and she went to alert the neighbours, who summoned the police.
She noted that the same group of men had visited their home on Monday, and said they would return to inspect the paper work and goods the family had stored on their premises, since they were not satisfied that the goods were legitimate.
Mohamed was inconsolable yesterday as she talked about her husband, while several relatives tried to comfort her as she nursed an injured leg.