GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC) – The Guyana Police Force (GPF) Friday said that a 24 year-old man remains in custody as the investigations continue into the shooting incident that left a five-year-old child hospitalised.

The GPF said that on Thursday, officials at the Linden Hospital Complex reported that a child was brought there with a “warhead” lodged in her throat. The child was reportedly shot while lying in bed after a bullet protruded a wall from the adjacent apartment.

The GPF said that the “warhead” has since been removed successfully and that the child remains hospitalised in a stable condition.

Investigators said the prime suspect in the incident is a 24-year old taxi driver who has admitted to the shooting incident during an audio-video recorded interview with investigators on Thursday night.

Police said the the suspect has indicated that he gave the weapon back to his “friend” and that law enforcement officials are trying to contact that ‘friend”.

The suspect is accused of discharging a loaded firearm with intent, and causing injury to the five-year-old child who lives in the apartment next to his. The child’s mother told police that she had put her daughter to bed and while she was trying to put her eight-month-old baby to sleep, she heard the victim screaming.

“She went to the victim and enquired what was wrong and the child said that she had hit her throat,” the police said, adding that the mother applied petroleum jelly’ to the child’s throat and put her back to sleep.”

But the following morning the daughter was crying, “so she examined her throat and saw that it was swollen. She then took her child to the Mackenzie Hospital, where she learnt that a bullet was lodged in the victim’s neck,” police said in the statement.