Two murders in two weeks puts Guyana community on edge
Two similar styled murders within two weeks scare Enmore residents.
GEORGETOWN, Guyana, Monday May 14, 2012 – The creeping drug menace is being blamed by residents of one East Coast Demerara village for the brutal slaying of two of their own within the last two weeks.
Just after daybreak on Saturday (May 12), Enmore grocery store watchman Rudolph Narine was found by his shocked employer bound and gagged with his throat slit on the floor of his place of workplace, the R. Ramlogan grocery.
Stunned Enmore residents were struck by a sense of déjà vu at the circumstances of this brutal murder as, early on the morning of May 2, a man on his way to retrieve his morning paper was traumatised to stumble across the bound and gagged body of 40-year-old taxi driver Rajendra Puran in a drain outside his home. Puran is said to have died from blunt force trauma and his Toyota Raum taxi was missing, leading police to believe that Puran’s body was dumped by the murderers who stole his vehicle.
The theft of Puran’s car and the ransacking and looting of the Ramlogan grocery store has left some to believe that the once secure Enmore community is fast becoming a haven for drug addicted thieves.
This escalating violence comes just days after a popular business place in the village owned by Guyana wicketkeeper batsman Sheik Mohamed was broken into and millions of dollars in cellular phones and similar equipment stolen.
And what is more disturbing for the villagers, is that the knowledge the perpetrators seem to have of the layout of the village and its businesses points to the fact that the criminals could be from among them.
Members of the Enmore community policing group reported that they had been patrolling the village on Friday night but concluded their tour of duty around 11:30 pm, and police said evidence indicated that Narine’s murderer or murderers waited until the watch was over before targeting the store.
Chairman of the Enmore Station Management Committee Taijnauth Jadunauth has appealed through the media to residents, including businessmen in the village, to see community policing as everybody’s business.
He said merely giving financial assistance would not keep the community safe as the manpower was needed for the village patrols.
Jadunauth also reportedly accused the police of conducting “selective patrols” and, despite their being knowledge within the village of the likely perpetrators of crimes, he said the police were not targeting these suspects.
His sentiments were echoed by others who spoke of a group of young male drug addicts who were believed to be responsible for most of the criminal activities in the Enmore community.
In turn, the police have reportedly said that they are constrained from effectively carrying out their duties because some of those they arrest have high-ranking connections that exert pressure for the suspects’ release.
However, investigators are said to behoping that the recent upsurge in criminal activity in Enmore will spur residents to cooperate more with the law enforcement bodies. Click here to receive free news bulletins via email from Caribbean360. (View sample)