Ten armed men tied up a Chase Village, Chaguanas woman and her children on Saturday night and robbed them of $80,000 in cash and other items.
Chutney artiste Sunil Ramsundar said he was at work when the home invasion took place. Ramsundar said the money was what he had worked for as an artiste and musician and was planning to put the cash in the bank on Friday. However, because of the heavy traffic he decided to wait until Monday. Ramsundar said he has no idea how the criminals found out about the cash. He said sometimes he has the money bag strapped on his shoulder.
Recalling the ordeal Ishwarie Singh, 49, who is the wife of the singer, said she had opened the burglar proofed gate in the front of her house to allow her 23-year-old daughter to access the bathroom. The daughter and her common-law husband are occupying a room in front of house.
Singh has two sons with Ramsundar and two adult daughters from a previous marriage. She said, “I was sitting on the couch with my phone and watching TV and when I watched the door I saw three fellas walking in and I got so frightened, I wanted to know where they came from. They come in and told me hush, hush, hush before making a cut throat sign by their neck. They just come in and hold me down and take away my phone put tape on my mouth, tied up my hand, tied up my feet and kept saying where the money, where the money? I say we don’t have any money, and they want the jewelry and if we don’t cooperate they will kill us.”
Singh said two additional men walked into the house while another five men stood outside. Singh said the men came by passing through several bushy lots behind their house and escaped with a car parked to the front of her house, which is the last house on a dead end street.
Singh said he was “real frightened.” The men ransacked the bedrooms and a prayer room, They then taped up the mouth of her 11-year-old son and threatened to kill him and the family if he didn’t reveal the location of the cash and jeweler.
The child then took the bandits to where his parents had hid the money. “He tell them take everything all yuh want and go,” she said. Singh said she feared she would have been harmed. Singh said they were not going to leave the house until Ramsundar had come home.
“The said they come for he, not for me. They said they will kidnap my two children and carry us away. They were waiting and hiding.” Singh said if Ramsundar was home things may have been different since Sunil would have put up a fight. Singh said one of the bandits was on the phone talking with the “head man” who hired them. She said the man was giving instructions. Singh said she suffered a panic attack and was given water to drink by one of her attackers who told her that he too had a mother.
Singh said following the ordeal she and the children would stay home at night and was not fleeing their house. She said a camera system at their home was not functional and persons living near them were reluctant to share footage. Ramsundar said had he been home he would have put up a fight was not the type to run from a confrontation.
Ramsundar said he would be going to work at nights. He said the money was to repair his roof and ceiling. He said the bandits also wanted the $200,000 prize he won in this year’s intellectual chutney monarch competition. However prizes have not yet been distributed for that event.