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Kaieteur News
Edinburgh man robbed, shot at during home invasion A 23-year-old truck driver of Lot 1126 Edinburgh Village, East Bank Berbice, is counting his blessings after being shot at during an armed robbery at his home. According to a police source, Jason Hussain, who lives with his wife, threemonth-old baby, brother-inlaw and mother-in-law, was
alone at home when he heard a noise in one of the rooms in the house. Hussain told investigators that he was having dinner at the time and got up to check when he saw a man armed with a cutlass and masked, already halfway through the window entering the house. He stated that he
Sunday November 20, 2016 Home of Edinburgh truck driver, Jason Hussain
threw his plate with food in the perpetrators face to distract him and ran towards the front door. It was while opening the door that he was confronted by two other masked men, dressed in black clothes and gloves, armed with a cutlass and gun. The bandit holding the gun allegedly fired a shot in Hussain’s direction but he dodged, the bullet hit a refrigerator that was located behind him and passed through. Hussain told investigators that he fell to ground while both men entered the house and
eventually tied him up before he could raise an alarm to alert his neighbours. He added that while he was tied up the men ransacked the home in search of cash and jewellery. The (continued on page 70)
CH&PA warns ‘zero tolerance’ campaign against squatting The Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) has repeated warnings to squatters on Government lands and reserves to remove. Minister within the Ministry of Communities with responsibility for housing, Valerie Adams-Patterson, in a statement Friday, made it clear that CH&PA’s enforcement officers recently carried out an exercise in Sophia, Georgetown. “As recent as two weeks ago, my team went in there, because after I visited and I did a television programme asking persons not to continue squatting and told them that we are looking at ways and means to address the issue, we noted that many persons went in after that, and put up new structures. So the Enforcement Department went in,” the Minister disclosed. During the earlier visit to the community, the enforcement officers who had accompanied Minister Adams-Patterson met with squatters living in existing buildings in the community. The officers had marked those buildings and identified the persons living within for the Ministry’s rent-to-own homes that will soon come on stream. Hence, Minister Adams-Patterson explained that in the new exercise none of the old structures were touched. “We are not in the business of putting people on the roads, but they were new structures. Some you could just see the frames, and so the officers went in,” the Minister said. Minister AdamsPatterson explained that the enforcement officers were accompanied by two police
Minister within the Ministry of Communities, Valerie Adams-Patterson officers, but that “was not enough, because the report I got is that people swarmed them, and wanted to beat the staff and beat the police, so they had to retreat.” The CH&PA will not be deterred and will continue to enforce its strict zero tolerance policy on squatting, the Minister pointed out. “We cannot continue to operate the way we have been operating, order has to come, and if we are trying to do it in a decent manner, and people don’t want to cooperate with us then we have to bring the hammer down. That is not what we want to do, we want to work with people and bring order. So I am appealing to all Guyanese because it is not only happening in Sophia, stop the squatting. We know we have issues with land allocation, we are working on it. Stop the squatting,” the Minister urged.