KHULMATTIE Singh left her ailing mother and her four children at their Second Field, Cummings Lodge, East Coast Demerara home on Friday night, fully intending to return to them after a hard days work. But she never did make it. The 36-year-old waitresss life was snuffed out when she took a bullet to the head while on the job.
The womans mother, Chandrapattie Singh, 64, who was on the brink of tears as she spoke to the Guyana Chronicle yesterday, said that her only child was killed in the most brutal of fashion.
The elderly woman said that Khulmattie, also known as Kathy, left home at about 15:00h for work at Safraz Sports Bar and Restaurant, located on David and Lamaha Streets in the northeastern extremities of the city. It was the last time she would ever see or hear from her.
I would go
to bed early, and as it approaches midnight, I would get up and sit in the
hammock in the verandah and wait for my child to return home from work every
night,ö the grieving mother said. As she explained, her daughter was working
the night shift at the time, and usually returned home at around midnight. Next
month would have been a year since she started working at the bar.
She would
later learn of the young womans demise when a colleague of hers called to say
that her workplace was robbed and that Kathy was shot in the process. They did
not tell me right away that my daughter was dead, she wailed.
What seems
to trouble the woman the most is that this is the third person in her family to
have been gunned down while at work. The first incident occurred a few years
ago, when her brother, who worked as a security guard at the Cyril Potter
College of Education (CPCE) was fatally shot by bandits while on the job. Then
on February 18, 2008, the day of the infamous Bartica Massacre, her other
brother, Baldeo Singh, was gunned down by a group of heavily-armed bandits. He
was among the twelve persons, including three policemen, who were shot and
killed that fateful night.
The Police
said yesterday that at about 21:10h on Friday night, three men, two of whom were
armed with handguns, attacked and robbed patrons and staff of the Safrazs Sports
Bar and Restaurant. Reports are that after entering the nightspot and holding
everyone at gunpoint, the three bandits proceeded to relieve several persons of
their jewellery, cash and cell-phones, and the bartender of the days takings.
Besides
shooting the waitress to death, the men also shot and injured Jason Montgomery,
38, an Australian national here on business, and 39-year-old Ronald Dhanraj, of
Ogle, East Coast Demerara, both of whom were patrons.
Montgomery
was shot to his abdomen and is now a patient at the Georgetown Public Hospital
Corporation (GPHC) where he underwent surgery early yesterday. According to his
business partner, Mark Xavier, he is fully conscious and on the road to
recovery.
Dhanraj, on the other hand, was shot under his left arm and is a patient at a
private hospital.
All three assailants escaped unscathed in a waiting Toyota Carina AT 192 motor
car.
Safrazs was yesterday closed for business in order to facilitate the police with
their investigations.
day, January 10, 2010
