- one assailant held

( According to Guyana Chronicle she was touched on her rear)

Two men attacked University of Guyana Berbice Campus Public Management Student, Nafeeza Yahya, at approximately 20:30 hours on September 17, last, as she made her way home from Ram’s Stationery and Convenience Store.

Yahya was supposed to return to the store, but decided to proceed home instead. She apparently saw no danger in doing so, as she had walked that route many times before, even later at night.
While walking into the street just south of the public road, two men on bicycles approached her from behind. One of the men proceeded to touch her (where), and she responded, ‘What’s wrong with you; why yuh don’t go long yuh bloody way?’
As she said this, the other man jumped off of his bicycle and told her that she could not talk to him that way because he was a gangster.
He then grabbed her by the neck and choked her.

Yahya said that she tried to scream, but was unable to due to the grip on her neck. Finding herself silenced, Yahya began to kick and fight the two men, who then felt her about the body.
After some time, she was able to break free of the hold the two men had on her.
Her assailants realized that she had recognized them, and would be able to identify them so one of them whipped out a cutlass and chopped her to the head. A second chop was fired at her, but she managed to attempt to block it with her hand.

cutlass

That blow severed her left thumb and injured her left index finger.
Screaming with pain and terror, Yahya ran back to the store as her assailant continued to slash at her as she ran.
Subsequent to her arrival at the store, she was rushed to the New Amsterdam Hospital where she underwent emergency surgery to save her thumb. It was unsuccessful.
Yahya received seven sutures to the head and 43 to the hand.
Follow up surgeries were done over the next week to restore automation and function to her other fingers on her left hand.

Meanwhile, on the night of the attack, a search party that included two police ranks from the Rose Hall Police Outpost and Yahya’s relatives managed to capture one of the assailants.
That individual, after some resistance, apparently furnished the search party with some information concerning his accomplice’s identity and whereabouts. Despite efforts made by the search party, the man’s accomplice was not arrested.
According to reports, Yahya had a cellular phone, cash and a gold ring on her at the time of the incident, which her assailants did not attempt to take. This has led Yahya’s family members to believe that the motive behind the attack was not robbery, but rape.
The alleged attacker appeared in the Whim Magistrate’s Court on Monday last, and was charged with attempted murder - an offence to which he was not required to plea.

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The matter has been adjourned to September 30.
The attack has generated a sizeable commotion at the UG Berbice Campus, said the Director of the UG Berbice Campus, Rishee Thakur.
According to Thakur, the students of the University are both alarmed and horrified by the attack, as it happened in the vicinity of the Campus.
Thakur said that the University was planning to have a meeting today with ‘everyone’ so that the various concerns could be ventilated before the University decides on a course of action.
Ideally, Thakur said, the University would request additional police patrols between 19:00 hours and 21:00 hours, the time when most students are on their way home.
The additional patrols should act as a deterrent.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008