Sascha Wilson
A Penal grandfather was beaten with a piece of iron on his head after he tried to protect his teenaged grandson from a couple who attacked them at his daughter's home on Tuesday.
Fearful for their lives, mother of five Sharina Khan-Sooden is pleading with the police to arrest the couple.
She believes that the couple attacked them because they were jealous that they got a solar panel system.
Just four months ago, a company donated a solar panel system to the family who had been without electricity for 40 years.
There are other families in the area without an electricity supply.
Showing a broken window at her Station 10, Penal Quinam Road yesterday, Khan-Soodeen complained,"Since we get the solar panel system the neighbours around here use to real dig horrors, they used to be cursing us and threatening us and all sorts of thing. I never know the day would have reached to this."
She recalled that around 7.45 pm she was in the bathroom when the couple came to the house. But, her father Zaid Khan, 64, a fish vendor, was sitting outside the house while her children ages ranging from 14 to two-years-old were inside the house.
"He slap my 14-year-old son. He hit daddy with a piece of iron in his head. Daddy start to bleed through his nose, he drag daddy, daddy was like Stop beating my grandson. Daddy start to brakes for...his grandson. He proceeded to beat daddy, drag daddy etc."
She said they managed to lock the door, but the couple broke the window in an attempt to get in.
Khan-Soodeen complained that they called the police but they took over two hours to arrive and the couple has not yet been arrested or even warned.
She said the police told her that they would arrest the man on Friday when they get the medical certificates from the hospital.
She said the woman verbally abused and threatened them several times, but she was not arrested.
Khan-Soodeen said her father rears cattle and on Tuesday night someone cut the rope and freed two of them.
She appealed to Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith to intervene as she is not satisfied that the police were treating her report seriously.
"I would like Mr Gary Griffith to work on the Penal Police Station they really need to. Two and a half hours to reach here, someone could have died. Children were involved."