A
alexk
Guest
Days after he was beaten with a sledgehammer and chopped, a Couva fruit vendor is pleading with police to arrest his three attackers.
Jamal Young, who believes he is lucky to be alive after being hit more than 20 times with a sledgehammer, was discharged from the San Fernando General Hospital yesterday.
Young, 35, who operates a fruit stall at Southern Main Road, Couva, near Lisa’s Boulevard and his wife Nariba St Rose complained that the police were dragging their feet on the matter.
St Rose said after the attack, on Friday and Saturday she went to the police station to report the incident but on each occasion the police refused to take a report.
“I was told that I cannot make a report, my husband has to make the report,” she said.
After being discharged, Young went to the station where he made a report. Grimacing in pain at his fruit shed yesterday, Young said the attack stemmed from a land dispute.
He said he has been operating the shed for over 13 years and he had made numerous reports to the police about the man and his sons threatening him and his wife.
However, he said, only on one occasion the police arrested the man. He said the man claimed he owns the land on which his shed is situated but Young said the land belonged to the State.
He said the man brought him up in court for allegedly blocking the track and the matter came up in the Couva Magistrates’ Court last Tuesday.
Young claimed he (Young) asked the magistrate to grant him a restraining order against the man. Instead, he said, the magistrate warned the man to keep the peace.
Recalling the incident, which was captured on a surveillance camera, Young said around 5.30 pm he was roasting fish to sell when he heard a banging sound.
Upon investigating, Young said, he saw the man hitting a beam on his building with a sledgehammer and his two sons armed with a cutlass and shovel.
He claimed that the man told him he came to break down the shed and kill him. Young said he threw two beer bottles in an attempt to scare them.
“They rush into me, all three of them at the same time and they knock me down. The father keep on hitting me with this sledgehammer like he serious.” He said the whole village came out, but no one intervened because they were too scared. Eventually he blacked out and the men ran off.
He sustained no broken bones, but received deep cuts and bruises about his body. He said the men mashed up his radio and stole $2,700 from him.
Young said the police told him that they had to follow a process before they can arrest the men.
He added: “I want justice swift as possible because I feeling that this man could come back and do this tonight, so long as he know I am here. He and his two sons will come back and harass us again.”
Claiming that the man also tried to burn down his building, Young said he usually spends the night at the stall for fear that the man will destroy it.
Young said he will continue selling at the stall because that is their only means of income. A senior officer said a report was not taken from the wife because she was abusive to the officers but the wife said she only became hysterical when the police refused to take the report.
Investigations are continuing.