The lives of five fam­i­lies were for­ev­er changed by crim­i­nals who left a trail of an­guish on Tues­day night when they took the lives of five men in sep­a­rate in­ci­dents.
Rock bassist Shiv­an Ramd­hanie, Rio Claro fa­ther Clifton “Bess” Jef­fery, Navet farmer Lal­be­har­ry Ra­moutar and Su­per­in­ten­dent of Pris­ons Wayne Jack­son and Ju­ma McK­ell were all mur­dered with­in 24 hours.

In the lat­est in­ci­dent, Ju­ma McK­ell died at the Ari­ma Health Fa­cil­i­ty hours af­ter be­ing shot sev­er­al times about the body at Phase Four, La Hor­quet­ta, around 4 pm yes­ter­day.

Mean­while, Ramd­hanie, 28, of Kan­hai Road, Bar­rack­pore, was shot dead while lim­ing with friends at Troop­er’s Bar along Mo­hess Road, Bar­rack­pore.

Ramd­hanie and his rock band, BON CANE, had prac­ticed ear­li­er at the bar as they were prepar­ing to go on tour in Guyana and Suri­name next month. It was the norm for the group to meet with friends and have a few drinks af­ter prac­tice. 

Re­ports stat­ed that around 11.30 pm, a white Nis­san Sun­ny B-15 pulled up in the road and two masked gun­men got out. CCTV footage from the bar showed that Ramd­hanie nev­er saw the gun­men as his back was turned.

The video showed Ramd­hanie and a friend sit­ting around a ta­ble on a porch. Two oth­er friends were stand­ing when a gun­man ap­proached and fired at one of the friends who was stand­ing. The vic­tim was shot in his arm and he and the oth­er friend who was stand­ing ran in­to the bar.

Ramd­hanie leant over the ta­ble and cov­ered his head but the gun­man turned his gun and shot him sev­er­al times in the back. He died with­in min­utes. His oth­er friend par­tial­ly hid un­der the ta­ble and nar­row­ly es­caped be­ing shot.

Bar­rack­pore po­lice re­spond­ed and the in­jured man was tak­en to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where he was treat­ed and dis­charged. Po­lice combed the area for the sus­pects af­ter the brazen shoot­ing but no one was held up to yes­ter­day.

The bar was re­cent­ly robbed by masked ban­dits but when the gun­men came on Tues­day, pa­trons said it ap­peared they came with the in­tent to kill some­one.

Bar­rack­pore West coun­cil­lor Ku­marie Kuars­ingh said res­i­dents were no longer safe, as the mur­der was just the lat­est crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty to plague the re­gion of Pe­nal/Debe. She said the re­gion was once safe but cit­i­zens are now pay­ing with their lives as the Gov­ern­ment turns a blind eye to crime. 

“As the days go by, young girls are miss­ing, preda­tors are lurk­ing, women and chil­dren are be­ing raped, limbs are be­ing sev­ered off of peo­ple, bul­let-rid­dled bod­ies are found all over the coun­try and cit­i­zens are fear­ful for their lives,” Kuars­ingh said.

“Res­i­dents are left in the dark about what is tak­ing place in Pe­nal/Debe. Why is there such a dras­tic up­surge of crime? What is be­ing done about it? Why is the Gov­ern­ment in de­nial about the law­less­ness that is plagu­ing our coun­try? Why is there no jus­tice for those that have been vic­tims of crime?”

She added, “The lives of cit­i­zens are not val­ued as the blood of our peo­ple con­tin­ue to stain our land while the Gov­ern­ment re­mains in­ac­tive. The Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and the Prime Min­is­ter, who is the head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, have both proven to be in­com­pe­tent in the fight against crime. The mur­der toll stands to­day at a record-break­ing 405 in 276 days, the high­est over the past five years. One life lost to crim­i­nals is too much. Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, the time to act is now.”

In an­oth­er in­ci­dent, Clifton “Bess” Jef­frey, 39, was shot at his home along the Guayagua­yare Road, Rio Claro. A re­port stat­ed that around 8.40 pm, Jef­frey was stand­ing in a shed out­side his home while his fam­i­ly sat on the step.

Sud­den­ly, sev­er­al gun­shots were heard and his fam­i­ly found him bleed­ing on the floor. He was tak­en to the Rio Claro Dis­trict Health Cen­tre where he died min­utes lat­er.

And around 4 pm Tues­day, the body of Rio Claro farmer Lal­be­har­ry Ra­moutar was found float­ing in a la­goon near his gar­den in Navet. Ra­moutar’s work­ers told po­lice they last saw him alive around 12.30 pm that day in the gar­den tend­ing to his dasheen field.

Hours lat­er when the work­ers re­alised they were not hear­ing or see­ing him, they walked to­wards the field and found him float­ing in the la­goon with two chop wounds on his head.