ANAND’s Liquor and General Store at Success Village, East Coast Demerara, was, on Sunday, robbed by three masked gun-toting bandits who took away cash, phones and other articles from proprietor Anand Persaud and four of his employees.
Persaud was outside of the business tending to some beer bottles when all he felt was a gun to his head and someone pushing him inside. Another employee, who was packing stocks into a vehicle outside was ordered inside, along with one other who was attempting to ebb her way into a neighbour’s yard.

A silver/grey ‘Fielder’ PXX 5970 was parked outside the business with one of the bandits as the lookout. He was the one who ordered the women inside. Once inside, one of the bandits asked Persaud to take them to the office at the back. It was this request that made him feel that the criminals were people who were familiar with him and the shop.

The bandits carted off a quantity of cash from the business, along with three cellphones. They also took Radha Budhu’s bag containing some money, a phone, her identification card, and other documents. Budhu, an employee, was especially traumatised after the incident and needed her friends’ help to get about her business after the men left. One of the bandits also assaulted her with his firearm.

Persaud told this publication that while one of the men appeared “mannerly” as he directed him what to do, another hurled insults and expletives at him. While grateful that no one was hurt, Persaud said the robbery is just another dent in his business since the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic. He is also dealing with some business debts that he was hoping to tie up soon.

Meanwhile, it was the loud noise that the bottles outside made when they fell and broke that alerted neighbours to the possibility that something was wrong.
A neighbour immediately called the Beterverwagting Police Station and told the policewoman there that the robbery was in full swing.

In an invited comment, the neighbour said it seemed the police could have cared less and showed no urgency in taking the report. Instead, the neighbour had to repeat one detail several times and all of the questions were instead being asked about the person making the report. The neighbour said had the police acted with some urgency, there is a high likelihood that the perpetrators could have been caught. The security cameras, for some reason, were not on during the time of the robbery.