By Fareeza Haniff
The West Bank Demerara teenager who was kidnapped, burnt and tortured by two Policemen, has described how he planned a daring escape after the men locked him in the trunk of a car with a shovel.
Seventeen-year-old Ashkay Budhairam, known as Gage of 3928 Westminster, West Bank Demerara, told the News Room he believed that the men wanted to bury him alive.
The case came to light on Tuesday when Police Commissioner Leslie James revealed that the two cops at the center of the probe are under close arrest and that they are the sons of a senior member of the Police Force.
One of the cops is stationed at the Wales Police Station and the other at the Tactical Services Unit (TSU) in Georgetown.
The Policemen, who are brothers, accused the teen of breaking and entering their Parfaite Harmonie, West Bank Demerara home on December 12 and stealing a cell phone and a game. The teen was never arrested or charged with any offence.
Ashkay said he was playing games at a Superbet outlet in Parfaite with his friends on Monday when eight men emerged from a car and “snatched” him at around 11:30hrs, placed him in the trunk and took him to the house he allegedly broke into.
“Them beating me, I hold one pon one of my friend. Them lash me with a crowbar, them vice me with the crowbar and black me out and throw me in a trunk. Them drive and took me to the house and showed me a shovel and said anytime I play I bad, them gon juck me,” the young mason told the News Room.
At the house, they handcuffed him to a bed and continued to beat him.
“Them go and hot some water with the electric kettle and throw it on me head and I start hollering…”
The teenager said he was also gun-butted. According to him, the eight men decided to remove him from the house because he kept screaming.
Still handcuffed, they placed him in the trunk again where he decided to plot his escape.
“I feel them slowing down. I pulled one of the cable for the trunk and it open and the car moving slow now so I just open the trunk and jump out.
“I land pon a parapet rolling, I jump over a gutter and run in the bush. Them stop the car because they ain’t want go in the trench.”
Ashkay said the men pelted him with bricks as he ran with his hands still in cuffs. He said he collapsed in the bushes because of the pain and stayed there for 15 minutes until he felt it was safe to walk to his sister’s house in Onderneeming.
“Them tell me anytime police problem come, they gon burn down me house and kill me family.”
But while he was being beaten, Police showed up at his mother’s house where they ransacked it in search of the stolen items.
Thankful to be alive
Meanwhile, Seetadai Lutch known as Subrina, a mother of seven, is distraught at what took place.
She was inside a bus on her way to Georgetown when she received a telephone call that her son was kidnapped.
Subrina launched a desperate search for her son at the Parfaite and Wales Police Station but came up empty-handed. She subsequently learnt the location of the house he allegedly broke into.
At the house, Subrina said one of the men came out and told her he does not know where her son is.
At the same time, two cars pulled up with four men.
“I see two car pulled up, four of them come out from two car in bare underpants, vest and a shovel in them hand. Them say ‘get out yuh coolie so and so from here…tell yuh son Ashkay when we find he, we will kill he,” Subrina recalled the men telling her.
The mother said she is thankful her son is alive.
“I thank God. I been asking God that let them just break he hand and foot and put he in the hospital, let them don’t kill he.
“I don’t want he go and lime on the road, on the street no more because he could have been a dead man with that shovel wah them had in them hand.”
She noted that already relatives of the Police brothers have reached out to her to settle the matter with monetary compensation but Subrina is hell-bent on seeking justice.
Ashkay has already positively identified one of the cops involved in the incident.
