KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

It was an in­tense ten min­utes of pan­ic as a 13-year-old girl and her 11-year-old broth­er hid in their grand­par­ents’ bed­room as armed ban­dits loot­ed their home and busi­ness in the wee hours of yes­ter­day.

Debe busi­ness­man Ken Sama­roo, own­er of Toiz with Noiz, and his wife spent the East­er week­end in To­ba­go to at­tend an au­to show. But af­ter 13 years in the au­to busi­ness, ban­dits struck his home, leav­ing his par­ents and chil­dren trau­ma­tised. Sama­roo re­turned home with­in hours of learn­ing of the break-in, hug­ging his fam­i­ly as he stressed over the at­tack.

Sama­roo’s fa­ther, Pati­ram, told Guardian Me­dia that the girl heard the ban­dits break­ing in­to the house around 3 am and quick­ly grabbed her broth­er and ran down­stairs to his room, where he and his wife slept.

“Gram­pa. Gram­pa. Ban­dits. Thief,” she whis­pered.

With the in­con­spic­u­ous room be­tween the busi­ness and home, Pati­ram left the lights off as he watched five masked ban­dits de­scend a stair­case and en­ter the store. They took sev­er­al speak­ers and re­turned up­stairs but left one in a bed­room. He said they al­so took out bot­tles of al­co­hol but left them.

While afraid, Pati­ram held a cut­lass, pre­pared to fight for his fam­i­ly if the ban­dits en­tered the room. He said he called the Emer­gency 999 hot­line, but no one an­swered. He called Sama­roo in To­ba­go, whose wife con­tact­ed the po­lice. How­ev­er, San Fer­nan­do and Bar­rack­pore of­fi­cers ar­rived at least 25 min­utes af­ter the ban­dits left.

CCTV cam­era footage showed that the ban­dits parked a wag­on in front of the garage at the back of the busi­ness. They climbed on­to a ve­ran­dah on the up­per storey and used a pig­foot to prise open a bed­room door. They ran­sacked the rooms, steal­ing a safe con­tain­ing cash and jew­ellery, the chil­dren’s jew­ellery and his grand­son’s Play Sta­tion 5. When they left, they dam­aged the low­er lev­el ceil­ing.

Even as Pati­ram laud­ed his grand­chil­dren’s alert­ness and in­tel­li­gence in re­spond­ing to the home in­va­sion, he said the or­deal left them with no ap­petite. It left him wor­ried, un­able to eat and un­sure whether he would sleep last night.

Pati­ram said it was the first time since Sama­roo opened his busi­ness 13 years ago that there was a rob­bery. There is bur­glar proof at the store and cam­eras around the build­ing, but this did not de­ter the ban­dits. He be­lieves it was a sign of grow­ing crime.

“You can­not feel safe any­where in this coun­try. If you are walk­ing on the road, you are not safe now, much less in your house,” Pati­ram said.

Pati­ram be­lieves the ban­dits scout­ed the busi­ness and home be­fore pulling off the bur­glary. 

“There was a strange ve­hi­cle. The neigh­bours told me there was some car around this week. I re­al­ly saw one come and turn around at the cor­ner there, dri­ving slow­ly go­ing back out.”

Pati­ram said there was a need for more se­cu­ri­ty around the busi­ness ar­eas of Debe and be­lieves there should be a ded­i­cat­ed po­lice sta­tion. Debe had a po­lice post, but the TTPS con­vert­ed it in­to a base for the High­way Pa­trol Unit sev­er­al years ago. Po­lice sta­tions in San Fer­nan­do and Bar­rack­pore cov­er parts of Debe.

South­ern Di­vi­sion Snr Supt Richard Smith said there was no alarm­ing in­crease in rob­beries, bur­glar­ies and store break-ins over the last few months. Re­gard­ing the at­tack on the Sama­roo’s busi­ness and home, Smith said that in­ves­ti­ga­tors are work­ing on a few leads that will hope­ful­ly re­sult in ar­rests soon.

And while Debe does not have a ded­i­cat­ed po­lice post, Smith said the build­ing hous­es po­lice of­fi­cers who re­spond to any sit­u­a­tion. He said from the footage: he saw that the ban­dits stayed in the house for eight min­utes.

“By the time peo­ple run and call the po­lice and get through to 999, it may take some time be­fore San Fer­nan­do or Bar­rack­pore po­lice get to their homes,” Smith said.

How­ev­er, he ad­vised peo­ple to call the po­lice sta­tions if they do not get on­to the E-999 hot­line or con­tact the di­vi­sion’s Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre, where of­fi­cers can re­lay in­for­ma­tion to pa­trols na­tion­wide.

Smith said this sys­tem works, point­ing out that through the cen­tre, the di­vi­sion co­or­di­nat­ed a swift ex­er­cise to ap­pre­hend crim­i­nals who as­sault­ed an es­tate con­sta­ble at a bar in Bar­rack­pore and stole his gun.