A 73-year-old grandmother pretended she had died to save her life in a brutal attack by thieves who beat and robbed her in an invasion of her home in Princes Town, Trinidad, a week ago.
Kuntie Bachan’s harrowing story now emerges as police last Friday nabbed one of two men who it is believed beat the elderly woman with a piece of iron. The suspect, 28, a labourer, is expected to be charged today.
According to a report in the NewsDay, the mother of five, grandmother of 15 and great-grandmother of 15, was asleep when the masked men broke into her home in Princes Town. During the ordeal on Saturday last, one of the attackers sat on Bachan’s chest, striking her repeatedly about her head with the metal weapon.
Bachan did not want any photographs taken of her yesterday but agreed to share the picture of herself, bloody and battered, which one of her grandsons had taken after last weekend’s assault.
She bravely told Sunday Newsday her story.
“I was sound asleep at about 3 am when I felt someone jump on my chest. It had to be a piece of iron that he started to lash me with. When I see blood so, I started to bawl and bawl. I was beating up and bawling while blood was spraying up. Then I stopped moving. I had to play dead and like they got frightened and ran,” Bachan recalled.
Her bedroom is on the ground floor of the one-storey home she shares with her grandson, his wife and their two children who were asleep on the top floor when the men broke in.
No one heard her screams as the air-conditioned units in her’s and her grandson’s room were on, and the steady din muffled any sound in the house.
Bachan put up a good fight as, in an attempt to block the blows to her head, she pulled the mask off of the man who sat on her. She said she got a “good look at his face”, as she had a light on in her room, but then pretended she had died, and the man stopped hitting her. He got off her and he and his accomplice ransacked her bedroom and stole more than $75,000 worth of jewellery as well as US$1000 and about TT$900 before fleeing.
When she felt safe enough to move, Bachan went upstairs and alerted her grandson since he could not hear her.
“I started to call out my grandson’s name but he was asleep and could not hear. After I played dead and the men left, I climbed up the stairs.
When I reach up, I bawl and bawl and he too started to bawl when he saw my condition. They wiped out my face and then carry me to the hospital. If I did not reach in time to tell them about it, I would have bled to death,” Bachan said.
She was rushed to the Princes Town Area Hospital where she was treated and discharged.
Police said the men gained entrance into the home by cutting the lock from the burglar-proof.
After a report was made to police, a party of officers from the Princes Town CID, conducted investigations.
Last Friday, police arrested one of the suspects at St Croix Road, in a sting operation.
“I am so old and never went to court in my life. My belly started to wring when I went to the station to identify that child (suspect),” Bachan said as she shook her head.
PC Mitchell is expected to charge the suspect today and he would be due to appear before a Princes Town magistrate tomorrow morning. (Excerpts taken from NewsDay)
