A FOUR-member family residing at Samaroo Dam, Pouderoyen, West Bank Demerara was terrorised, beaten and robbed on Thursday evening when a gang of men — one of whom was armed with a handgun and the others with cutlasses — invaded their home.The affected family members, according to a police press release yesterday, included 54-year-old Andy Sukhram; his wife, 47-year-old Esardai Sukhram; and their 18-year-old son, Andrew Sukhram.

At about 20:30hrs on Thursday, the family members secured themselves in the upper flat of their home, and were having supper when the back door was wrenched open and more than five masked men wielding cutlasses, and at least of them with a gun, barged into the home and began their reign of terror.
The men demanded cash and gold jewellery, and when they realised that the family was not wealthy, they began loading household appliances, clothing, utensils and other personal effects into garbage bags and a haversack. The items were then reportedly loaded into two vehicles waiting outside the home.

Speaking with the Guyana Chronicle yesterday afternoon at his Lot 82 Samaroo Dam, West Bank Demerara home, Sukhram said that it was shortly after they had watered their plants in the yard that the bandits struck. He feels that if the area was receiving electricity from the GPL, the incident might not have occurred.

“We do not have lights at the back here. We really, really need lights at the back here. They (bandits) walk, they come in, they can do what they wanna do. The people them need lights at the back here; we really need it. They are saying that we have to pay for the capital works four hundred and something thousand dollars and the CEO thieving how much million dollars and putting it in their bank accounts and all kind of things, and I go to places where they have no houses and the network run right through. We are the ones paying rates and taxes here, and the other people around the place squatting and they have lights,” he complained.

The men took away mobile phones, wares, tablespoons, televisions, generators, clothing, matches, gas bottles, gold rings, one brush cutter, kitchen knives and other small household appliances as if they were getting ready to furnish a home.

Sukhram, who works as maintenance supervisor at Demerara Distillers Limited, said what hurts most is that, contrary to what the bandits may have thought, the family is a poor one and had been saving for months to purchase certain household items.

He said that the size of their house came about from loans taken through the credit union and the bank, which facilitated an expansion.

During the ordeal, the bandits ordered the family to lie on the floor and demanded cash and jewellery, and when handed all the valuables available, they started to beat and terrorise family members, even threatening to kill them and kidnap Sukhram’s son if he and his wife did not hand over more valuables.

The family members were tied up, kicked, slapped, stomped, and cuffed, while sharp objects were placed to their necks. The younger Sukhram remarked that at one point his mother’s life was threatened if he did not tell the men where they could find more valuables.

“ ‘You see you, if you done tell me where the rest of the gold is, youngster, I will take this same razor blade and slit your mother neck in front of you, and show you what I can do. And I will be the first in Guyana can do it’, and then I see he went over to my mother neck, and then I don’t know what else happen because I just blank out when I hear that,” the 18-year-old recalled.

A gun was also placed to the young man’s head.

The police visited the home that same night and took reports and promised to return the following day. However, up to the time this publication visited the scene, the ranks had not returned to uplift any fingerprints, while occupants of the home were unable to tidy up the ransacked home.

The family members said that while they were able to see only five men in the upper flat of the home, there were others downstairs and around the yard, as they could hear them communicating with each other in codes. The men apparently cut a hole through the meshed fence to assist them to gain access to the premises from the rear.

The occupants told the Guyana Chronicle that they were unable to be alerted to the presence of trespassers inside the yard since their dog was poisoned two days earlier.

The family is lamenting the refusal of the power company to install electricity in the area, although all other infrastructural works have been done. The Sukhrams been living in the area for just about eighteen years, this publication was told. GPL is reportedly asking the family and other persons in the area to stand the cost for the capital expenditure before they can provide electricity to the area.

When this publication arrived on scene, family members were being visited by other relatives and friends. They said that after the ordeal, Mrs Sukhram was the first to free herself, and then she freed her husband and son before going to secure help.

When the persons to the front of the village were told of the incident, they reportedly confirmed seeing a strange, heavily tinted white vehicle in the area, but had no idea that the car was scouting around to stage a robbery deeper in the village.