A Clare Estate family are living in fear after five armed robbers stormed into their home and robbed them of valuables last Thursday morning.
Moments before Amritha Bauchoo, 44, of Morewood Road, was about to sit down for breakfast, she heard her mother, 67, scream for help.
Seconds later Bauchoo was facing a gunman.
“It was before 8am and my husband had just returned from dropping off our son at work. He told me to have my breakfast and then he’d take me to the hospital as I had an appointment.
“I was about to sit down, when I heard my mom scream my name. She lives on the second storey of our home. I thought something happened to my dad as he’d just been discharged from hospital a few days earlier,” she said.
Bauchoo went outside and was about to go upstairs when she was confronted by a man pointing a gun at her head.
“He told me if I made a move or screamed he would shoot me. By that time, my husband had also come outside and was behind me.”
Bauchoo said her motherly instinct kicked in. She remembered her daughter, 19, was asleep inside.
“I knew I had to protect my child at any cost, even if it meant him shooting at me. I ran back inside the house and into my daughter’s room. I told her to get up, climb out her room window and hide.
“The whole time I was leaning against her door and that’s when two men pushed the door open. They pointed their guns at us, demanding our cellphones, money and jewellery,” she said.
The men pushed the family into the lounge.
“They continued to threaten to kill us if we didn’t give them money and jewellery. I told them to take whatever they wanted. One of the men pulled me up from the floor and pulled off my wedding ring and then pushed me back down.”
Bauchoo said that while the one robber kept guard over them, the other went into their bedrooms.
“They took some money my son had asked me to keep safe for him as well gold watches. They then pushed us into my bedroom and locked us in.”
Bauchoo said her cellphone, which was next to her headboard, was not taken. “They must have not seen it as it was behind my medication basket.
“I quickly sent a message to our crime group and my sister then switched off the phone and threw it under the bed in case the men returned,” she said.
Bauchoo said a while later they heard a car leaving the property. Her husband climbed out of the window.
“He went upstairs to check on my parents and then came down to open the door for us.
“At this stage we were all very shaken, especially my mum. She told us that she and my dad has been in the lounge when this vehicle, a gold- brown Hyundai Tucson, stopped outside the gate.
“My dad assumed it was a visitor or someone he knew through business who’d come to see him, and he opened the gate. She said five gun-wielding men jumped out of the car, ran into the yard and dragged their gardener inside the house. They were all forced to lie on the floor.
“My mother said one of the men then took her and demanded she show them where the safe was. She kept telling them there was no safe. They took money from her bag, cellphones and jewellery from my son’s room.”
Bauchoo said the men pushed her parents and the gardener into a bedroom before fleeing in her son’s car, a black BMW.
Bauchoo said they believed they were being watched before the robbery.
“When the one man took my mom, he asked her: ‘Where are the children?’ She told him there are no children, but every day my brother brings his children over to see us and they play outside while my parents watch them. So, these guys were definitely watching the house.”
Bauchoo said that although they were grateful to be alive, they were living in fear.
“Our whole life has changed since that day. My parents and daughter can’t sleep. My daughter said she wants to move. My dad has become so quiet, he doesn’t talk or eat. To see my parents go through such trauma at their age is heartbreaking. No family should have to go through this.”
Police spokesperson Captain Nqobile Gwala said a case of house robbery was being investigated.
No arrests have been made.
-POST
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