SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

What was a usu­al fam­i­ly din­ner turned in­to 30 min­utes of ter­ror for the Ghany fam­i­ly on Sun­day night, as six men in­vad­ed their prop­er­ty and beat, tor­ment­ed and trau­ma­tised them de­mand­ing cash and valu­ables.

The six men, one of whom was armed, lat­er robbed the Aranguez fam­i­ly of $21,200 in cash, jew­el­ry, clothes, bot­tles of Hen­nessy and cell­phones be­fore flee­ing their Ram­lal Trace Ex­ten­sion home in a Sport Util­i­ty Ve­hi­cle.

The crim­i­nals al­so tar­get­ed a cou­ple at their home in Cunu­pia. In the two at­tacks many of the vic­tims were left se­ri­ous­ly in­jured and in dis­tress.

Aranguez pen­sion­er, Rasheed Ghany, who was bad­ly beat­en on his face thanked God yes­ter­day for spar­ing his life and that of his fam­i­ly.

Ghany’s 15- year old grand­son, a Form Four stu­dent of St George’s Col­lege, suf­fered the brunt of the blows and had to seek med­ical at­ten­tion at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex.

The teenag­er was hit sev­er­al times on his head with a gun, punched in his face and beat­en with an iron cur­tain rod on his back and chest by the in­trud­ers.

He sus­tained a bro­ken nose, four lac­er­a­tions to his head and a bat­tered and bruised body.

Ghany,73, said his 64-year-old wife, Rashee­da, their daugh­ter Fazeela, son Wazir and three grand­chil­dren (two fe­males and one male) went through 30 min­utes of ter­ror by the crim­i­nals.

“It was 30 min­utes of non-stop ter­ror... non-stop,” Fazeela said.

Two of the grand­chil­dren are Fazeela’s daugh­ters-ages 17 and 21.

The oth­er is Wazir’s son.

“I thought we were all go­ing to die,” said a tear­ful Ghany, as he re­count­ed the or­deal in­side his ran­sacked home.

“When they do the gun so, right,” he said, mo­tion­ing the trig­ger of the gun be­ing pulled “I say I dead,” Ghany said, burst­ing in­to tears.

“They say pass the mon­ey. I tell meh wife go and give them, nah. I tell she be­fore they kill any­body give them the mon­ey.”

Through­out their or­deal, Ghany said the men kept de­mand­ing mon­ey and jew­el­ry from his wife.

“She tell them she ain’t have no jew­els...she pawn it to fix the house. They want­ed to know where she pawn the jew­els,” he said.

“They feel be­cause we are liv­ing in a big house we have plen­ty mon­ey. They don’t know how hard peo­ple strug­gling out here,” in­ter­ject­ed Fazeela, 42, a di­vorcee.

With each pass­ing mo­ment, Ghany said the crim­i­nals’ de­mands kept grow­ing.

Ghany said his fam­i­ly was hav­ing din­ner in the kitchen around 8.14 pm.

“We were laugh­ing and talk­ing,” he re­called.

Then the dogs be­gan bark­ing fe­ro­cious­ly.

This made Fazeela open her bed­room door on­ly to see four men run­ning up a long stair­case in­side the house.

The men gained en­try by jump­ing the front gate and en­ter­ing a side door that was opened.

Com­ing face-to-face with the ban­dits, Fazeela said she ran back in­to her room, locked the door and di­alled 911 on­ly to hear a voice record­ing on the oth­er end say­ing “Please hold.”

In­stant­ly, her hopes sank.

Un­able to reach the po­lice, Fazeela sent a voice note in the com­mu­ni­ty’s What­sApp group chat in­form­ing the res­i­dents that their home was un­der at­tack by ban­dits and need­ed help.

As Fazeela wait­ed with bat­ed breath for help, the thieves went on a ram­page.

Fazeela’s 17-year-old daugh­ter, a Form Five stu­dent of St Joseph Sec­ondary School, said when she saw the thieves walk­ing up­stairs she at­tempt to jump over the ve­ran­dah of the up­per lev­el of their home to es­cape them.

“But when I saw two of the crim­i­nals stand­ing guard down­stairs I had to re­luc­tant­ly go back in­to the kitchen.”

The fam­i­ly runs a shop in front of their home while Ghany is a well-known farmer in the dis­trict.

Aranguez is one of T&T’s food bas­kets.

From her bed­room, Fazeela said she over­heard her fam­i­ly bawl­ing and beg­ging the crim­i­nals for mer­cy while they were be­ing beat­en mer­ci­less­ly.

The crim­i­nals used pieces of cloth, cords and elec­tri­cal wire to tie up the fam­i­ly who was held at gun­point while they ran­sacked their home.

“They tor­ment­ed the fam­i­ly by point­ing the gun at their heads and pulling the trig­ger,” Fazeela said.

They al­so kept beat­ing Wazir and pass­ing a knife around his neck and stick­ing him with the tip of the blade.

Ghany said the in­trud­ers told his wife that if she did not hand over the cash blood would flow.

“What got us fright­ened was when they said they will kill two peo­ple if they don’t find any mon­ey. My body just went numb. I didn’t know how to re­act,” Fazeela’s younger daugh­ter said.

“They put the gun to their heads....they tried to shoot them... but the gun kept stick­ing. They want­ed to cut off my moth­er’s ears. You know what it is to hear your moth­er, fa­ther, broth­er and chil­dren bawl­ing and you can’t help,” Fazeela said, as tears rolled down her face.

Ghany said his heart broke when the men sud­den­ly turned on his grand­son.

“They start­ed to beat him with the gun on his head. They cuff him in he face and break his nose. I beg and cry for them to leave my grand­son alone. That boy get so much of licks from them fel­las, I thought he was not go­ing to make it when we saw him bleed­ing so much,” Ghany said, wip­ing away tears.

When the Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the fam­i­ly yes­ter­day, there were blood stains on the floor­ing, walls, chairs, ta­bles, doors, toi­let and wardrobe.

Ghany’s grand­son said he fought the ban­dits and man­aged to grab the gun from one of the men but it was quick­ly tak­en away.

Stat­ing that he was try­ing to pro­tect his fam­i­ly, the teenag­er said.

“One of the men picked up a cur­tain rod and be­gan beat­ing me on my chest and back. They kept telling me I could die at any time. I was scared but I was try­ing to get an op­por­tu­ni­ty to fight back be­cause it is my fam­i­ly.”

Be­fore leav­ing, the fam­i­ly said the men tried to ren­der them un­con­scious by rub­bing a cloth con­tain­ing a chem­i­cal in their mouths.

“It had some faint chem­i­cal smell in the cloth that burst up our lips. We don’t know what it is.”

The last thing the ban­dits told Ghany be­fore leav­ing is that they com­ing back for him.

“And when we come back this time it go have no­body liv­ing. Them come to kill we last night. But be­cause that gun stick they ain’t get to shoot no­body...be­cause God was on we side last night,” Fazeela said.

The Ghanys said they were robbed sev­er­al times be­fore and this has left yet an­oth­er sour taste in their mouths.

“I told my fa­ther last night, let us just sell the house and go some­where. This is about the sixth time we get tar­get­ed.”

The Ghanys said Aranguez has been un­der at­tack by crim­i­nal el­e­ments in the last few months.

Sev­er­al of the res­i­dents and farm­ers in the com­mu­ni­ty who spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty said they have no­ticed an in­crease in home in­va­sions which have them liv­ing in fear.

A re­lease from the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Unit stat­ed that six men are now in po­lice cus­tody as a re­sult of quick ac­tion by the North­east­er Di­vi­sion Task Force and Barataria Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment fol­low­ing the rob­bery.

The of­fi­cers re­spond­ed im­me­di­ate­ly to the re­port and while on Ram­lal Street they ob­served an SUV head­ing west at high speed.

The SUV then re­versed and crashed in­to a wall. When of­fi­cers ap­proached the ve­hi­cle, one of the oc­cu­pants point­ed a firearm at the of­fi­cers and shot in their di­rec­tion.

The po­lice re­turned fire.

The men then fled in dif­fer­ent di­rec­tions and af­ter giv­ing chase one of the sus­pects, suf­fer­ing from gun­shot wounds, was found in pos­ses­sion of a loaded Glock pis­tol.

The wound­ed sus­pect lat­er died at the hos­pi­tal while six sus­pects were ar­rest­ed.