Bandits slit a woman's throat and stabbed her on Friday night
after they had gone into her Grove Squatting Area home where she
runs a small grocery shop.
While the intruders took some money and jewellery, relatives
of the woman are convinced that murder and not robbery was the
true motive.
"This is not robbery; it is pure murder", Moti
Anganoo, the brother of deceased mother of two Rajpattie Balgrim,
told Stabroek News yesterday.
Balgrim, known as Leila, 47, of 193 Grove Squatting Area, was
stabbed some eight times in her face and had her throat slit.
Right)
Seventeen-year-old Govindarai and
his 11-year-old sister Satrupa
mourn the loss of their mother. Govindarai demonstrates how his
hands were bound.
Her two children, Ravi, 17, and Devi, 11, were not harmed
although the lad was subdued and tied up by one of the
attackers.
International AIDS
Conference
Police have since begun investigating the circumstances that
led to the slaying of the Grove East Bank Demerara shop-owner
whose body was left lying in her backyard.
(
Left) Grief-stricken
relatives of the late Rajpattie
Jageswar converge at the
scene of her demise to comfort her traumatised children. In
photo is brother of the deceased Moti
Anganoo (at right wearing cap)
flanked by mourning relative
(Pictures
by Cullen Bess-Nelson) - Guyana
Chronicle
According to reports, Balgrim went into the backyard at
around 9.40 pm to collect water from a black tank to soak some
sennapod. She was setting the seeds when the men attacked her.
Stabroek News understands that her children heard a scream,
and her son was coming out of the house to check on it when he
was confronted by two men. He was tied up with a rope and
instructed to sit quietly by one of the bandits, while the
second man who was wielding a knife, demanded money and
jewellery from his sister.
After initially claiming not to have any she then reluctantly
showed the men where the takings from the day's sales could be
found, and she also gave them some jewellery.
Once the men had collected these items they ordered the girl
to sit quietly with her brother and await the arrival of their
mother whom they promised to release.
After waiting several minutes the children began to get
worried and decided to check outside only to encounter her dead
body.
Balgrim and her children had only a short while earlier
returned home from the mandir where they had gone to observe
pre-Phagwah festivities.
A neighbour said that the police arrived to take statements
some 40 minutes after he had called them. They also held one
woman and three men who were at the scene and are believed to
have been witnesses.
Relatives are of the view that the men planned the attack at
least a week ago, since dogs in the neighbourhood, including one
that belonged to the victim, were mysteriously poisoned at that
time.
Anganoo could not think of any enemies his sister had,
although he recalled she was involved in an ongoing feud over a
property. He went on to say that the killers did not demand any
more money than what they were given, and they made no attempt
to search the two-storey home for anything else.
"They just polish off with that," the victim's
brother said.
This is the second tragedy to have befallen the children as
it was only about nine months ago on July 4 that they lost their
father in a car accident at Happy Acres.
(Oscar Clarke)