Yvonne Webb

Chut­ney so­ca artiste Sam­raj "Rik­ki Jai" Jaimun­gal had to beg for his life af­ter a gun­man who shot at him and missed kept the loaded gun point­ed at his waist for ap­prox­i­mate­ly three of the most ter­ri­fy­ing min­utes of his life, as he de­mand­ed mon­ey and oth­er valu­ables in ex­change for Jaimun­gal's life on Wednes­day.

"He threat­ened to shoot me but I begged for my life. I told him he did not have to shoot, I will hand over the mon­ey and he showed me some mer­cy and on­ly robbed me. I have to thank God for that," Jaimun­gal said in a tele­phone in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day.

He said he did not know if the un­masked gun­man recog­nised him and for that rea­son did not shoot him.

"I don't know if he knew who I was but he showed mer­cy on me and I have to be grate­ful for that," he said.

This is not the first time Jaimun­gal has been a tar­get of crim­i­nals. He de­scribed a sim­i­lar at­tack in Mara­bel­la, south Trinidad, in 1988.

"I was mugged in Mara­bel­la. I was hos­pi­talised. I still have three inch­es of scars in my back as a re­minder but the good Lord is not ready for me yet. He know I have three kids to take care of," he said.

The crossover artiste, who is a semi­fi­nal­ist in both the In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch and Chut­ney/So­ca com­pe­ti­tions with his 2016 hit "Leh We Fete", ex­plained that short­ly af­ter mid­night yes­ter­day, he and his band had just fin­ished re­hearsals at the Speed­way Build­ing, San Juan, when they no­ticed the dri­ver of a Nis­san B14 dri­ving up and down the street.

"A cou­ple of the guys drove off and me and the drum­mer were still stand­ing there. We ob­served the two guys mak­ing their way to­wards us and I told the drum­mer, 'This not look­ing too good leh we ride out of here.' I see the guy (dri­ver) start to pick up pace and I run to my ve­hi­cle and my guy ran to­wards his."

Jaimun­gal said by the time he got to his ve­hi­cle, one of the oc­cu­pants of the car, armed with a gun, jumped out and fired a shot at him. He said he don't know where that shot went, "be­cause I went back with the po­lice to­day (Thurs­day) and no shells were found, nei­ther was my car dam­aged. I don't know if he shot it in the air."

A fright­ened Jaimun­gal, who was al­ready seat­ed in his ve­hi­cle, said in his haste to dri­ve off he fum­bled with the gear stick.

"At this time he (the gun­man) was right up on me. Point­ing the gun to­wards me, he said 'Open the door or I will shoot you.'"

Jaimun­gal com­plied and the gun­man stuck the gun in his waist and con­tin­ued to threat­en his life.

"He then de­mand­ed my wal­let. I don't walk with a wal­let. I just had some cash and my dri­ver's per­mit. I begged for my life be­cause he kept say­ing he would shoot me but I told him you don't have to shoot, I will give you the mon­ey and what­ev­er you want.

"The gun was on my waist all the time. I gave him the cash and he took my cell­phone and he ran off," he re­called.

The ban­dit es­caped in the wait­ing car.

Jaimun­gal said af­ter he was able to re­gain his com­po­sure he ac­tu­al­ly chased af­ter the ban­dits' car, but lost them near the Carib brew­ery. He said crime had been a prob­lem for too long in T&T and even though the po­lice keep pro­duc­ing sta­tis­tics to say it was go­ing down, "it is still hap­pen­ing.

"I don't have the so­lu­tion for crime. I wish I did. That is the job of the po­lice, those in au­thor­i­ty. When it hap­pens to you, you know how it feels. I just hope the po­lice catch the cul­prits," he added.

How­ev­er, he said the in­ci­dent would not de­ter him and his band from their re­hearsals.

"It is Car­ni­val time, we have lots of jobs. We have to prac­tise. The own­ers of the build­ing will or­gan­ise se­cu­ri­ty and the band mem­bers will just have to look at the time we are leav­ing and how we are leav­ing, so we are not vul­ner­a­ble," he said.

San Juan po­lice are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.