Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

A man who was up­set be­cause he could not get work ran amok at a con­struc­tion site at Long­denville on Sat­ur­day, killing a pri­vate con­trac­tor and rob­bing sev­er­al peo­ple. The in­ci­dent oc­curred around 7.15 pm at Dam Road, Riverview Park, Long­denville. Po­lice said Bha­gan Gopie, 47, the own­er of Bha­gan Gopie Con­trac­tors Co, died af­ter be­ing blud­geoned. He suf­fered mas­sive in­ter­nal in­juries and a frac­tured skull, af­ter be­ing hit mul­ti­ple times with a con­crete block and an iron ex­ca­va­tion tool called a luchette. A wit­ness who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said around 7.15 pm, Gopie and sev­en work­ers, in­clud­ing him­self, went to the pri­vate de­vel­op­ment site at Riv­er View Park. He said they were hired to con­struct a house for a po­lice of­fi­cer, who had pur­chased land at the de­vel­op­ment site, where sev­er­al more hous­es were be­ing con­struct­ed by oth­er con­trac­tors.

The wit­ness ex­plained that when they ar­rived, they got word that a for­mer em­ploy­ee who was al­leged­ly fired for steal­ing at an­oth­er con­struc­tion project, ran amok at the de­vel­op­ment site and be­gan at­tack­ing work­ers. "The man was say­ing that if he don't get work, no­body work­ing at that site," the wit­ness said. "He was beat­ing peo­ple and rob­bing them of their mon­ey. He asked one man for some­thing to eat and the man of­fered him a dou­bles, but he threw it away and say he don't want dou­bles." He ex­plained that work­ers at the site start­ed run­ning from the as­sailant. They ran to­wards Gopie who fled in­to his van. The wit­ness said the as­sailant took up a bro­ken con­crete block and smashed it on Gopie's head. He was knocked un­con­scious. "We tried to de­fend him but the man is a strong Ras­ta man...He took up the luchette and he start­ed to beat the boss all over his head," the wit­ness re­called.

At least sev­en peo­ple pulled the as­sailant away from Gopie, who was bleed­ing pro­fuse­ly. His face was swollen and blood was pour­ing from his eyes and ears. One of the work­ers car­ried Gopie in­to a ve­hi­cle and took him to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, where he died. Po­lice of­fi­cers lat­er ar­rived on the scene and ar­rest­ed the sus­pect. The luchette and part of the bro­ken con­crete block were seized by the po­lice. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the sus­pect would be charged with mur­der. Mean­while, Gopie's wife, who did not give her name, said she was up­set by me­dia re­ports that her hus­band was killed at a bar. She said Gopie was well-loved in his com­mu­ni­ty of Gas­par­il­lo and he did not drink al­co­hol. Ch­agua­nas po­lice are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.