Murder at seaBy RHONDOR DOWLAT and INDAR SEURAJ Tuesday, November 11 2008
A DOWN-THE-ISLANDS lime turned into a tragedy on Sunday evening when six gunmen rammed a speedboat into a 32-foot pirogue and opened fire on the passengers, killing one man and wounding five persons, including a four-year-old boy.
Assim Ali, 42, died after he got shot in his lower left back, according to an autopsy yesterday.
The wounded survivors are Gopaul Singh, 46, his son Ravi, four, his brother Anil Singh, his cousin Neisha Nandlal and another passenger Indira Manwah, 38.
Ali and the survivors were all aboard the pirogue, Sandy, which was returning from an excursion to Copper Hole on one of the five islands, off the western peninsula, at about 5 pm, Sunday. Police report that there were at least 20 passengers, including the crew, on the Sandy, which the gunmen circled in a speedboat before opening fire.
In a desperate attempt to save Ravi from the hail of bullets, Singh held his son and was shot three times. The gunshot wounds to his right knee left him with shattered bones, torn ligaments and tendons, as well as damaged nerves. He also sustained a minor wound to his left leg.
Singh said Ali, a man he barely knew, helped to protect Ravi as he also used his body to shield the boy.
“The fella who get kill (Ali) he came over to me when he realise I have Ravi,” Singh said yesterday, at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital.
Ravi was lucky to escape the ordeal with only a flesh wound on his right forearm, while Anil was shot in his left calf, and Nandlal sustained two bullet wounds to her right shoulder and one to her left forearm.
Singh, a labourer with the Ministry of Works, said the attack by the gunmen was unprovoked. According to him, the gunmen came in search of someone on the pirogue but only stopped their assault when they realised there were women and children on board.
“That was a nightmare...the people like they come looking for somebody but they realise was the wrong people,” he said.
Singh’s wife, Taramatee, 40, described the incident as “horrible”, when the gunmen drove by the Sandy four times and continued shooting at the passengers and the crew. She said it was just as frightening when the Sandy began taking in water from bullet holes.
“The driver drive hard to reach by the Coast Guard,” she said at her home at Chanka Trace, El Socorro South, San Juan, yesterday.
Little Ravi, who is still in pre-school, had a few words of his own. “Bandits shoot me here,” the boy said, pointing to his right forearm. He and his mother later visited his father at hospital.
Manwah, like Ali, had to be warded at Port-of-Spain General Hospital.
Up to late yesterday, a bullet remained lodged almost in the centre of her chest, after it had entered through the left side of her neck and travelled downwards, missing vital organs.
Barely able to talk, the 38-year-old mother of two said she knew she had been shot amid the volley of shots she heard while crouching down in the pirogue.
“I just felt the burning, that is it,” Manwah said. She is expected to undergo surgery to remove the bullet in her chest.
Her husband, Rodney described the six-minute ordeal as “terrifying”. “There was little for us to do as there was no place for us to hide. We just leaped to the floor of the pirogue and some of us tried to shield the children from the bullets.”
Ali’s family yesterday remained confused about the reason for the attack. His son, Azard, 19, said Ali was a carpenter and had only just started his own business.
“My mom, Latchmin, was grazed by one of the bullets. She is not taking this easy at all and my sister Kalisha, 13, is also said to be traumatised,” Azard said, at the Forensic Science Centre, St James.
“I really don’t know what may have happened but I believe that it was a pirate attack but the thing was that they just crashed into the pirogue, shoot and then speed off. They did not attempt to board the boat to rob them, nothing like that. It is very confusing,” he added.
Ali’s autopsy revealed he was shot in the left side of the back with the bullet exiting to the front penetrating the small intestine. He will be cremated today at the Caroni Cremation Site, under Christian rights, following a service at the family home in Cunupia.
Communications specialist for the Coast Guard Lt Kirk Jean-Baptiste yesterday said the Carenage police contacted the Coast Guard for help to find the speed boat after the passengers reported the shooting at sea.
“we immediately despatched a vessel but at that time we did not pick up any vessel on our radar which meant that by the time the message got relayed to us whoever was on that speedboat would have reached land already,” said Jean-Baptiste.
The Carenage police and the Coast Guard are continuing their investigations.
