- Disciplined Forces set to apprehend, terminate activities of Buxton gang - Dr. Luncheon
AN exchange of gunfire by the Joint Services with gunmen aback Buxton, East Coast Demerara last night, has reportedly left two persons dead.

Up to midnight last night, this newspaper was unable to confirm the identity of those dead but unconfirmed reports are that both persons were ‘criminals’.

A senior security official confirmed that the exchange began in south Buxton after sundown yesterday and sustained gunfire ensued for hours.

Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, President Bharrat Jagdeo had, last Saturday, ordered the security forces to dominate the East Coast in the wake of the slaying of 11 Lusignan residents.

“We…have to simultaneously hunt down these criminals,” the President declared in announcing increased security presence on the East Coast.

Head of the Presidential Secretariat (HPS) and Cabinet Secretary, Dr. Roger Luncheon, earlier yesterday announced at his weekly post-Cabinet media briefing that despite having their focus on the recent heinous crimes being affected as a result of crowd control demands, the Disciplined Forces have still been able to unleash a massive exercise to apprehend and terminate the activities of the Buxton gang believed to be behind the Lusignan massacre.

“The Joint Services have been brought in line and enhanced security measures have been put in place at vulnerable locations,” Luncheon told reporters.

He noted that the reward for the apprehension of the ‘menace’ – Guyana’s most wanted and notorious criminal, Rondell ‘Fine Man’ Rawlins, has been upped to $30M for apprehension or the provision of information leading to his apprehension.

Luncheon also reported that Cabinet registered its surprise and disgust at ‘those voices of irresponsibility and opportunism which either have failed to make condemnation of this outrage the central point of their public utterances, and/or have sought to introduce justification for this heinous crime’.

“In the face of such an outrage, one can understand the absolute rejection by Cabinet of their contributions to any public examination of this event,” the HPS contended.

On Saturday, January 26 last, heavily armed gunmen swooped down on the peaceful and close-knit community of Lusignan on the East Coast of Demerara, opening fire indiscriminately as they invaded several homes and slaughtered 11 of their occupants in the process.

Those killed in what has been described as the worse crime since the Jonestown Massacre in 1978, included five children. Some of the victims’ relatives survived the ordeal and were hospitalised.

One of the victims was buried Tuesday while 10 others are to be buried today in a mass funeral. The Office of the President has declared today a National Day of Mourning.