The quiet East Bank Demerara village of Grove was plunged into mourning yesterday following the murder on Saturday night of Totaram Manna, proprietor of Little Mann's Paradise at 375 Third Street.

Murdered: Totaram Manna.

Manna was killed when three bandits invaded his premises.
The victim, a well-known businessman in the Grove community, was shot in the abdomen while tending to customers in his grocery shop at the front of his house about 22:45 h Saturday.

His wife, Jennifer Manna, 46, told the Chronicle yesterday that she was ironing clothes for Sunday morning church when she heard a scrambling in the house and immediately knew something was wrong.

Relatives, friends and neighbours at manna's house.

She headed for the back door for help, but her mother-in-law who lives in the upper flat of the building had closed her back door.

She ran back into the house where she was confronted by an intruder.

She began screaming, though the man told her to shut up. She saw her husband's niece, Michelle Saturn, 18, standing in the room, with the bandit demanding cash and jewellery from her.

The grieving widow

Manna said she ran back outside through the back door and hid under a shed, from where she heard a gunshot and her husband screaming for help.

She said two of the bandits then escaped by jumping the front fence, while the third one got away through the neighbours' fence.

The widow told the Chronicle that after the bandits left she went to the shop and saw her husband on his knees in the shop and then he fell unconscious.

He was rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital, where he died soon afterwards.

A police report said three men armed with a hand gun attacked Totaram Manna in his shop and it is seemed as if he put up a fight before he was show.

The police said nothing was reported stolen so far.

Manna said this is the first robbery the family experienced after being in the business since 1984.

When the Chronicle visited yesterday, scores of relatives, friends, neighbours and members of the Grove Nazarene Church were there, consoling the grief-stricken widow.

"I believe my husband gave his life for me because he fought bravely with the bandits in the shop, when he was murdered," Manna cried.