Woman wants ZOSO after parents terrorised in home invasion

SHAS­TRI BOODAN

GML Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

A 42-year-old breast can­cer sur­vivor is call­ing for stronger se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures to pro­tect el­der­ly res­i­dents in Mc Bean, Cou­va, af­ter masked, armed men broke in­to her fam­i­ly’s home and robbed her par­ents at gun­point.

The woman, who lives with her 37-year-old sis­ter and her par­ents, told Guardian Me­dia that the in­trud­ers en­tered their home along Cal­cut­ta Road on Thurs­day, tied up her 65-year-old fa­ther and ter­rorised her 64-year-old moth­er.

She said the or­deal had left the en­tire fam­i­ly trau­ma­tised, with mem­bers strug­gling to sleep at night.

The woman be­lieves el­der­ly res­i­dents in the com­mu­ni­ty are in­creas­ing­ly be­ing tar­get­ed by crim­i­nals and is urg­ing the au­thor­i­ties to take de­ci­sive ac­tion to im­prove their safe­ty.

“Two months ago, an el­der­ly neigh­bour of mine was robbed. Two years ago, an­oth­er 82-year-old man who lives near­by was al­so robbed at gun­point,” she said.

She said her par­ents were par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble, as her fa­ther was re­tired and await­ing his gov­ern­ment pen­sion grant.

Ac­cord­ing to the woman, the in­trud­ers en­tered the prop­er­ty through the back fence and pro­ceed­ed to rob her fa­ther, but left with lit­tle or noth­ing.

De­spite the lim­it­ed amount of prop­er­ty tak­en, she said the psy­cho­log­i­cal im­pact on the fam­i­ly had been sig­nif­i­cant.

“My par­ents and we as a fam­i­ly re­main trau­ma­tised,” she said.

The woman, who has since re­turned to her pub­lic ser­vice job af­ter bat­tling breast can­cer, said the in­ci­dent had height­ened her con­cerns about the safe­ty of el­der­ly peo­ple in the area.

“We are all trau­ma­tised and can't sleep at night,” she said.

She ac­knowl­edged that Cou­va po­lice had been keep­ing the fam­i­ly up­dat­ed on the in­ves­ti­ga­tion but said more need­ed to be done to ad­dress crime in the com­mu­ni­ty.

She called for a Zone of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) to be es­tab­lished in the area, claim­ing that crim­i­nals were mov­ing in­to the com­mu­ni­ty and tar­get­ing vul­ner­a­ble res­i­dents.

“We need to get this Zone of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) in our com­mu­ni­ty. There are too many crim­i­nals mi­grat­ing in­to our com­mu­ni­ty and rent­ing apart­ments and tar­get­ing the el­der­ly,” she said.

The woman fears that the re­port­ed rob­beries in­volv­ing el­der­ly res­i­dents point to a wider se­cu­ri­ty con­cern and is ap­peal­ing to the au­thor­i­ties to in­ter­vene be­fore an­oth­er house­hold ex­pe­ri­ences a sim­i­lar or­deal.

She hopes her fam­i­ly's ex­pe­ri­ence will prompt greater at­ten­tion to the safe­ty of old­er peo­ple in Mc Bean and sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties.