BARRACPORE farmer Jaggernauth Ranoo has slammed the police for their tardy response to a home invasion, in which he and a friend were held at gunpoint, tied, beaten and robbed on Corpus Christi.

Ranoo, 67, said the police took more than an hour to respond to his cry for help. When two officers finally got there, they remained seated in the police vehicle while they took basic information from him.

“I invited them to come inside and see the state in which the bandits left my house, ransacking everything, but they told me they will return on Friday evening to take finger prints.

“To be quite honest, I don’t have no confidence in them. I done get rob, I not hurting my head over anything. I just thank God I have life,” Ranoo told the Newsday in a telephone interview on Friday.

The incident took place a short distance from where Ranoo’s relatives, market vendors Michael Ramkhalawan, his wife Sharda and their nephew Sheldon Jaglal, 20, were also, bound, gagged and robbed by four gunmen one week ago.

Ranoo said the last thing he expected was that he would become another crime statistic. He said crime was out of control and felt not enough was being done by the authorities to protect citizens.

He said he has since fled his home and was afraid to be photographed for this newspaper article.

“I have become a coward. I am frightened to stay in my house.”

He said, on Corpus Christi, his close friend Hardath Maharaj visited and they were liming and making a cook.

Because his friend did not eat meat, Ranoo said they purchased fish and were making a pot of fish and rice when they heard a loud sound.

He said upon returning to his home, he just pulled in his gate but did not lock it.

Four masked men stormed into the house. Two of them were armed with guns and two others with cutlasses.

Pointing guns at their heads, he said the criminals announced this was a robbery and asked Maharaj to hand over the keys to his silver panel van – TDM 1534.

Maharaj hesitated for a second and was planassed (struck with the flat side of the cutlass blade).

The two friends were ordered to lie on the ground, where their hands and feet were bound.

Ranoo said they quietly went down on the floor, because they did not want to be shot.

The assailants then searched the house for valuables and money, making off with a weed wacker and a tablet which provided entertainment for Ranoo and stored photographs of his grandchildren along with family telephone numbers

The thieves also stole an undisclosed sum of cash.

After they escaped with the van, Ranoo said Maharaj managed to untied himself and Ranoo.

“We called the Penal, Barrackpore and Princes Town police and, I don’t know which one of them responded, but is better they did not come.”

Ranoo said he did not know why he was targeted.

“I live in an old house. They rip up and scatter everything. I believe they came for the van, but as they tied us up they searched the house for anything valuable they could get."

Police said the van was later used to rob Barbie Mini Mart a