Woman traced, robbed at gunpoint at West Side salon

A woman was this afternoon robbed of her handbag containing $800,000 in cash, a cellphone and her documents at a salon on the West Coast of Demerara.

Bhavana Samtani told News Room that she cashed a cheque at Parika, East Bank Essequibo to conduct some business two hours prior to the incident.

Noting that she opted not to drive today, the woman said after some time, she and her four year old son joined a minibus at Parika and travelled to the salon at about 01:30hrs.

“While enquiring how long I’d have to wait and all of that, two guys walked in but one of them, he kind of bowed down to my feet and kind of caressed my bag so I thought somebody was playing a prank. Like you know your friends will just walk up and say give me your bag or whatever…while he was bowing there, I’m still like standing with my bag waiting to get up to see who it is,” Samtani explained.

She noted that when the man got up, he began tugging the bag but she held on to it until she saw both the suspect and his accomplice pull guns from their waist.

At this time, Samtani said she let go of the bag taking into consideration the safety of her son, employees and customers at the salon.

The men, who were not masked, then fled to their waiting car –a dark grey premio –and drove off towards Georgetown. The victim along with another person took a brave decision to drive behind the suspects’ car but lost them after they turned into a street a few villages from the salon.

It was on their return to the salon that the victim and other patrons reviewed CCTV cameras which revealed that the car stopped some distance away from the minibus and waited to see who exited before driving up to the salon. This suggests that the men were tracing their victim for some time. This notion was supported by additional information received from persons at Parika who noticed the men behind her earlier in the day but did know she was being followed.

An investigation is ongoing.