POLICE are hunting four men who last Thursday brutally assaulted 41-year-old Karran Persaud at Pigeon Place, East Coast Demerara, and in the process severed his nose and inflicted multiple cuts to his face and throat.

Persaud’s wife, Barbara, was alerted by her son whilst the assault was ongoing, and she and other family members reportedly arrived at the scene just in time to retrieve the man’s nose which had been entirely severed from his face.

They rushed the profusely bleeding man to the Georgetown Public Hospital, where emergency theatre operations were performed to reattach his nose to his body, and corrective surgery attended his other injuries.

Karran Persaud remains warded at the GPHC, but he recalled being invited to a neighbour’s place last Thursday to have a drink, and that at around 15:00 hrs he was watching a game of cricket on TV when four men who were drinking at another table asked him to show them to the urinal.

Karran pointed them to a urinal which was at the side of the building, but they wanted him to get up and walk them to the urinal outside. He refused, and the men became irate and abrasive. One of them allegedly picked up a glass and hurled it at Karran’s head, causing him to slump to the ground unconscious; but, after a while, he regained consciousness and struggled to his feet.

Karran’s wife, Barbara Persaud, who related the incident to the Guyana Chronicle, said that after her husband got up, one of the men braced him to a car and “fired a lash at him”. Another pulled out a knife from his pocket and began gashing away at Karran, cutting off his nose, slitting the left side of his neck, and inflicting cuts about his face and to his head, chest and left hand.

Her son, who was in another yard, saw what was happening and called out to her. She alerted other family members, and they rushed to Karran’s rescue, but the men fled before they could reach them.

The badly wounded man was rushed to hospital, where he remains warded; but is much improved, thanks to the prompt and efficient intervention of the doctors on duty.

Barbara said that, based on what they did to her husband, she was left to contemplate whether they had ‘smoked’ narcotics and were on a ‘high’.

One of Karran’s assailants is reportedly from the immediate Pigeon Island neighbourhood, while three others are from Better Hope.

Police are continuing their investigations.
Written By Shirley Thomas