Kevon Felmine

Gun­men dressed in sec­ondary school uni­forms held up and robbed a Pe­nal jew­el­ry store on Mon­day.Po­lice said the sus­pects, one dressed in a Bar­rack­pore sec­ondary school uni­form and two in Pe­nal sec­ondary school uni­forms, made off with a large quan­ti­ty of loot from the Roy­al De­sign Jew­ellery Store on the Pe­nal Rock Road af­ter their dar­ing rob­bery.

How­ev­er, in­ves­ti­ga­tors said ar­rests will be made soon since the men's iden­ti­ties have been ob­tained from se­cu­ri­ty footage ob­tained in­side the store.Po­lice said the sus­pects were not school­boys, but were known crim­i­nals with sev­er­al rob­bery and lar­ce­ny con­vic­tions to their names.Re­ports said around 1.10 pm, the gun­men stormed in­to the store and an­nounced a holdup. They then or­dered the man­ag­er, 35-year-old Clara Baksh, to emp­ty the jew­el­ry in­to a bag.

Af­ter col­lect­ing the loot, the rob­bers ran out the store and es­caped through a track.Po­lice, led by PC Singh, re­spond­ed and launched a search for the sus­pects. How­ev­er, they were un­suc­cess­ful in cap­tur­ing the men.Po­lice be­lieve one of the sus­pects may have been re­spon­si­ble for the wound­ing of a Pe­nal labour­er who was shot in the but­tock lat­er that day.

Po­lice said around 7.55 pm, Christo­pher Meade, 25, of Fazal Av­enue, Pe­nal Rock Road, was told to run for his life af­ter be­ing robbed of $400 by a gun­man.Meade told po­lice he was walk­ing along a track near his home when he was ap­proached by the gun­man.Af­ter he had run a few me­tres, the rob­ber fired two shots. Meade was hit on the back of his up­per left thigh by one of the bul­lets.

Meade hob­bled to the Pe­nal Po­lice Sta­tion and po­lice took him to the Siparia Dis­trict Health Fa­cil­i­ty, where he was treat­ed and lat­er trans­ferred to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. He re­mained in a sta­ble con­di­tion up to yes­ter­day.Cpl Khan is in­ves­ti­gat­ing.