Home invasion victims recount horror on Bellmore Ave.

Most Monday mornings, 20-year-old Haris Sumra leaves his Bellmore Avenue home to take his sister to C.W. Post before heading to his own classes at St. John’s University. This Monday, Haris woke up late, and decided to return home to shower and eat breakfast after dropping off his sister.

When he pulled up at the house, near the intersection of Bellmore Avenue and Fowler Street, he noticed a man sitting in a parked car. “The guy was looking at me and he was on the phone,” Sumra recounted. “I was getting suspicious.”

He knocked on the door, knowing that his mother, Shabnan, was likely in the kitchen or the front room. Hearing no response, he called out to his mother. He peered into the window over the door and saw a man he didn’t recognize walking toward him. The lock clicked open, and the man tried to grab Haris by his shirt collar and pull him inside. “I pulled myself back with all my power,” Haris said. His shirt ripped apart.

He ran down Bellmore Avenue, waving to stop cars on the busy thoroughfare. A woman stopped, and Haris explained that his parents were being held hostage. Meanwhile, three men fled the house to the waiting car, which headed south on Bellmore Avenue.

Cautiously entering his home, Haris found his mother, father and a family friend bound with cords around their wrists and ankles, their mouths covered with cloth, unable to speak. His uncle was in the basement, bound by a phone charger. He released them and called the police. His mother had been badly beaten, and blood was splattered across the bedroom wall where the house’s occupants had been held hostage. The horror of what had occurred slowly began to unfold.

Shabnan had been alone on the main level when three men forced their way into the home. The men tied her up, along with the family friend. Haris had already left to take his sister to school, and his father, Arshad, was dropping off their youngest son at a nearby elementary school. When he got home, a man opened the door slightly, held a gun to his neck and dragged him into his own home. The men forced Arshad into the room with his wife and friend, where he too was bound and restrained.