Freelance Contributor
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.
The woman is the wife of chutney artiste Sunil Ramsundar, who said he was at work when the home invasion took place.
During an interview yesterday, Ramsundar said he had earned the money from gigs as an artiste and musician and he was planning to put the cash in the bank on Friday. However, because of the heavy traffic in the borough, he decided to wait until today.
Ramsundar said he had no idea how the criminals found out about the cash. Saying the money was to be used 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, he pointed out that prizes have not yet been distributed for that event.
Recalling the ordeal, his wife, Ishwarie Singh, said she had opened the burglar-proofed gate at the front of her house to allow her 23-year-old daughter to access the bathroom. The daughter and her common-law husband occupy a room in front of the 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 fellers 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, tie up my hand, tie up my foot and kept saying ‘where the money, where the money, yuh better talk doh lie’. I say we don’t have any money, and they want the jewellery and if we don’t co-operate they will kill us.”
Singh said two additional men walked into the house while another five men stood outside.
The men ransacked the bedrooms and a pooja (prayer) room. They then tied up and taped the mouth of her 11-year-old son and threatened to kill him and the family if he didn’t reveal to the location of the cash and jewellery. The child then took the bandits to where his parents had hid the money.
Singh said she believed the men accessed the property by passing through several bushy lots behind their house and escaped in a car parked at the front of the house, which is the last house on a dead end street.
Singh said she was “real frightened” during the ordeal and remains traumatised.
“He tell them take everything all yuh want and go,” she said.
Singh said she feared she would have been harmed, adding 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 was 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, adding that man was giving instructions.
Singh said she suffered a panic attack during the ordeal and was given water to drink by one of her attackers, who told her that he too had a mother.
She said following the ordeal, she and the children now are too fearful to venture out at night.
She said a camera system at their home was not functional and persons living near them were reluctant to share footage.