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HOUSTON (FOX 26) - Seiful Islam, a clerk at Super Quik Food Store, was shoved to the ground by robbers and shot in the back of the head yet somehow narrowly escaped death. It was broad daylight at 11 a.m. on Tuesday when witnesses say three men wearing masks and gloves went storming into the store on Woodforest Boulevard near Dell Dale Street in the Channelview area. There were two store employees inside when the gunshots were fired.
"I just pray that God saves his life," says store owner Mohammad Karim who adds that he couldn’t believe the frantic phone call he received from his clerk. "That’s all I can pray. He is telling me, 'Call 911! I’ve been shot, call 911!'"
A female employee was also inside during the attempted robbery and shooting. Her family members rushed over and learned she was not injured but they were heartbroken to know that clerk Islam was shoved to the ground and shot.
"He's a nice guy," explains the female worker's cousin James Cranford. "I come over here on a regular basis, go shopping, say, 'Hi, how you doing?' I know his family."
A man who stopped at the traffic light saw three guys run out of the store wearing ski masks. That man went in the store saw the clerk shot and applied pressure to the wound until paramedics arrived.
"It’s pretty upsetting knowing someone you know personally got shot," adds Cranford.
"We are doing a hard job," says the store owner's wife Zinnata Parven with tears in her eyes. "Everybody is working hard. We make a penny here and we’re saving. They come and take all my money. They shoot somebody. It’s not right."
Witnesses say the three masked men got away in a red or maroon older model Ford F-150 extended cab pickup truck.
The store owners and the store clerk came from Bangladesh together years ago seeking the American dream and it has now ended up a nightmare. The owners of the market say they thought they were protecting their workers with an enclosed cashier area but the gunman climbed through the window of that enclosure attacking the store clerk.
Sieful Islam remains in the hospital in critical but stable condition.