A 20-year-old deaf/mute woman was abducted and three of her female relatives chopped and stabbed, by a man who stormed their home early yesterday morning...
By CHERYL ANN CHAITOO-BERNARD South Bureau
Monday, January 12th 2004
A 20-year-old deaf/mute woman was abducted and three of her female relatives chopped and stabbed, by a man who stormed their home early yesterday morning.
A big pot of channa on a firecracker and bloodstains throughout the ransacked wooden house at #127 Dow Village, South Oropouche, were yesterday grim reminders of what had taken place just hours before.
At about 4 a.m., Kamla Ranjoo, 44 and her daughter-in-law Cindy Rampersad, 21 were making doubles, which Ranjoo sold for a living, when a man, armed with a cutlass and a knife and wearing a bandanna over the lower half of his face, entered through an open back door and attacked them both.
Police are investigating reports there were also three men waiting outside the house.
Ranjoo received several wounds, including chop wounds to both hands and across her stomach and a stab wound to her shoulder. Rampersad who was reportedly trying to escape down the stairs, was cut on her back and received a chop wound to her head and another to her chest which injured one of her lungs.
Ranjoo's daughter, Sharon, 28, who relatives said lived close by but usually stayed over on the weekends to help her mother, was chopped on her hand and had one of her fingers almost severed.
The three women were up to yesterday afternoon being treated at the San Fernando General Hospital. Ranjoo and Rampersad were said to be in a serious condition.
Sharon's children, Samantha, 10 and Steven, nine witnessed the horror but were not physically hurt. Rampersad's husband was not at home at the time of the incident.
The intruder robbed the family of $25,000 in jewelry and $500 in cash before he grabbed Ranjoo's 20-year old deaf-mute daughter Aneesher from her bed and dragged her out of the house, down a nearby track and into a waiting car.
Police, who were summoned by neighbours, used dogs and followed the girl's trail up to the point where she might have been put into the car.
Up to yesterday afternoon there had been no word from the abductors.
Relatives who gathered at Ranjoo's house yesterday morning were reluctant to speak to the media. One of them said although Aneesher was deaf-mute, she was able to communicate with her family through sign language.
"But the people who take she might not understand what she's trying to say," he said. Family members were yesterday praying the young woman would be returned to them safely.
Oropouche police are continuing investigations.
