By Fareeza Haniff
A normal afternoon of assisting her 8-year-old daughter with homework turned into a traumatic one for Shareeda Wahid, when two gunmen invaded her internet café at Cornelia Ida, West Coast Demerara and held her at gunpoint.
The armed robbery occurred at approximately 15:00hrs on Friday, October 06, 2017 and according to Shareeda, the men were not masked; she told News Room they escaped with three cellphones – an iPhone S4, a Blackberry and an HTC – along with $200,000 in cash.
But before the gunmen managed to escape, Shareeda put up a fierce fight – with a chair and a brick – however, the gunmen managed to overpower her and beat her about the face and pushed her in a drain.
She recalled that one of the suspects initially entered the shop and requested Digicel credit but before she could have attended to him, he pointed a gun to her forehead and put his hands over her mouth.
By this time, her daughter ran out of the shop.
“He say don’t holler, I will shoot you. In all of that, I was afraid and scared but I still fought back and the other guy came…point the gun at my Mother-in-law and told her don’t scream,” Shareeda told News Room.
During the scuffle, the cash register fell to the ground and Shareeda picked up a chair and hit the gunmen but one of them pushed her to the ground and “knee” her to the face.
“For me it was like I was a different person, in the whole scenario, because I wasn’t thinking about if I’m going to lose my life, I’m going to leave my child or anything; it was just like me and them because I am working hard for whatever I am trying to achieve in life and for somebody just come like that and point a gun and you will say ‘look, take it and go?’ No, it can’t be…I am working for an honest living,” the distraught businesswoman told News Room.
Shareeda recounted that she managed to break free from the gunmen and ran outside but they followed her.
“They push me in the drain…I got up and pelt them with a brick…and they fired three shots.”
News Room understands that the two men ran to the head of the street where there is a barbershop and relieved a taxi driver of his car. At the time, the driver was sitting inside his car, when one of the men gun-butted him and forced him out of the vehicle.
The car was eventually found abandoned shortly after the incident at Blankenburg, West Coast Demerara. Police are said to be reviewing surveillance footage from the area.
Shareeda has been operating her internet café since 2013 and this is the first time she was robbed.
