RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Gun­men opened fire on Mon­i­ca Ghany and her son Matthew as they left the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal af­ter vis­it­ing her ail­ing hus­band, re­tired busi­ness­man Steve Ghany, yes­ter­day, a stone’s throw away from the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Head­quar­ters.

Still clutch­ing the wheel of her Nis­san Ti­i­da, Mon­i­ca took her last breath, her head slumped down­wards, while her son lay bleed­ing in the pas­sen­ger seat.

Po­lice said the shoot­ing hap­pened at 2 pm.

Mon­i­ca and Matthew were dri­ving along La­dy Hailes Av­enue when, up­on reach­ing the con­struc­tion site of the new mar­ket, gun­men am­bushed them and rid­dled their car with bul­lets. The front wind­screen was shat­tered as passers­by near the King’s Wharf Tyre Shop fled for safe­ty.

Matthew was rushed to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for treat­ment, but Mon­i­ca was pro­nounced dead at the scene.

When con­tact­ed, As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (South/Cen­tral) Wayne Mys­tar con­firmed that homi­cide of­fi­cers are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the in­ci­dent. He de­clined to com­ment fur­ther.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, pres­i­dent of the Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber of Com­merce, Ki­ran Singh, said the mur­der had shak­en the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty. Ex­press­ing sad­ness over the killing, Singh de­scribed the wors­en­ing crime sit­u­a­tion as un­bear­able.

“We are deeply dis­tressed to hear of an­oth­er mur­der in San Fer­nan­do, where the wife of a busi­ness­man was bru­tal­ly killed and her son in­jured. Her car was sprayed with bul­lets in broad day­light,” Singh said.

He urged the po­lice to act swift­ly in ap­pre­hend­ing the sus­pects and en­sur­ing jus­tice is served.

“When is the crime go­ing to stop? We are look­ing for­ward to some se­ri­ous pos­i­tive re­sults. We are hear­ing a lot of talk and no ac­tion,” Singh added.

“We ex­pect the po­lice to be dili­gent in ar­rest­ing the sus­pects and en­sur­ing due process. We have crossed 600 mur­ders in this coun­try—a record high—and the year is not over yet. When will it end?”

Mon­i­ca’s mur­der, which took the toll to 614, came just 13 hours af­ter an­oth­er fa­tal shoot­ing along La­dy Hailes Av­enue, San Fer­nan­do.

Po­lice re­port­ed that a man known on­ly by the alias “Bam,” was shot and killed dur­ing a con­fronta­tion with an­oth­er in­di­vid­ual on Thurs­day night. At 10.40 pm, Bam, who resided at King’s Wharf, San Fer­nan­do, ex­it­ed a black mo­tor car on La­dy Hailes Av­enue. Mo­ments lat­er, there was an ex­change of gun­fire be­tween Bam and an oc­cu­pant of the ve­hi­cle.

When po­lice and Emer­gency Health Ser­vices per­son­nel ar­rived, Bam was al­ready dead. In­ves­ti­ga­tors re­cov­ered 11 spent 9mm shell cas­ings and one live round of am­mu­ni­tion from the scene.