A pump attendant was on Tuesday morning shot as bandits robbed a New Amsterdam gas station.
M Ali and Son Service Station that was robbed
Injured is Shazam Melville, 34, of Lot 114 Experiment, West Coast Berbice (WCB). He was shot in the back.
The incident took place at M Ali and Son Service Station at the corners of Main and King Streets, New Amsterdam. Reports are that shortly after 10:00,h two men on a motorbike approached the pump attendant and demanded that he hand over a bag that had in excess of $800,000. The money is said to be the revenue from sales over the preceding 24-hour period.
Shazam Melville
Melville had just finished his shift and was about to take the money to deposit at a bank when he was attacked.
At the time, there were two other persons on duty along with two of their friends and a car with passengers at the pump.
One of the attendants, Roney Yadram told Guyana Times that he was assisting a customer when he saw one of the men took out a small hand gun and point it at Melville demanding that he handover the bag with the money.
Yadram said he thought it was a prank.
“I was selling when the guy said: ‘pass the bag; pass the bag’. I left the customer to see what was transpiring. And then he scramble Shazam bag and Shazam keep holding the bag and he pull away the bag from Shazam.”
It was during this tug of war that a single gunshot was fired.
Yadram said that as he approached the bandit who was sitting on the motorbike, the man pulled a knife from his waist causing him to back off.
“Then I get scared,” he explained.
As soon as the gunman grabbed the bag, he jumped onto the motorbike and the men rode off in the direction of King Street, New Amsterdam.
Melville was seen holding his back walking towards the road before onlookers realised that he was shot.
He was rushed to the New Amsterdam Hospital, where he was admitted.
Regional Commander Linden Isles has since said that initial investigations revealed that the perpetrators fled into Mount Sinai, which is popularly called “Angoy’s Avenue”.
It sits on the fringes of New Amsterdam and is one of the communities which are considered havens for criminals.
The business has suffered a series of misfortune in recent years. In 2010, a pump attendant employed by the company at its Strand outlet left with the day’s sales – $1,100,700 – after collecting the money from a fuel purchaser.
In March 2017, arsonists torched a car belonging to the company at its Main and Pope Street outlet while in July 2015, two bandits went into the attached supermarket and took money, phone cards and a licensed firearm.
In October of the same year, bandits broke into M Ali Supermarket and Gas Station at Strand and after taking what they wanted, set the building on fire.
In 2016, a female employee of the business was found guilty of stealing in excess of $1 million in cash and jewellery from the company. She was sentenced to one year in prison and also fined $500,000.
