TWO male suspects were taken into custody hours after two friends were gunned down at Friendship on the East Bank of Demerara (EBD) on January 1 in what is considered a ‘hit’ and the year’s first case of homicide.Dead is 34-year-old poultry businessman Desmond Singh also known as “Fix-Up” of Lot A-1 Orange Walk, Bourda, where he operates his livestock business.

Twenty-four-year-old cattle farmer Azrudeen Hussain of Little Baiboo, Mahaica, ECD was also shot and succumbed to his injuries while receiving medical attention at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPHC).

In a statement on Monday, the police said they are investigating the circumstances surrounding the double murder which occurred at approximately 19:00h in the vicinity of Humphrey’s Street, Friendship, EBD.

According to police, the two friends were conversing when the gunmen approached, opened fire and fatally wounded them. Hussain was shot once to the neck and Singh 15 times about his body, by two men who concealed their faces with kerchief and armed with rifles. The friends were leaving a game bird competition in the area when the incident occurred.

‘A’ Division Commander, Assistant Commissioner Clifton Hicken told Guyana Chronicle that in addition to the two suspects that were taken into custody, the investigators are receiving additional information that they are working with.

At Singh’s Orange Walk residence, the poultry shop was opened for business but two black and red flags were erected as family members mourned in silence. His younger sister, Denise Singh told this newspaper that she was selling on Sunday evening when she received the dreadful news. “I got a call, saying my brother was shot,” she said, noting that she had last seen him about 15:00h that day when he was leaving to go to ‘fowl-cock ring’ in Friendship.

Denise Singh was subsequently informed that her brother had been killed at the hands of two gunmen but for what reason she does not know.

“He ain’t get no problem with nobody,” the woman posited.

She too was told that Singh, a gamecock gambler, was walking home when he was shot, along with another individual.

“Somebody shoot him for no reason at all…I don’t know if it is a grudge but he has no enemy, he don’t deh in no bad business, nothing,” she added. Singh was a father of six. Hussain,on the other hand,was a final year pharmacology student at the University of Guyana.