Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Brigadier John Sandy held the hands of Rad­hi­ca Ma­haraj-Per­sad as she wept in­con­solably at her San Pe­dro, Rio Claro, home on Thurs­day night for her son, po­lice con­sta­ble Anil Per­sad who was mur­dered hours be­fore in the line of du­ty."All his life he want­ed to be a po­lice of­fi­cer, and I en­cour­aged him to join the ser­vice," Ma­haraj-Per­sad rem­i­nisced as top brass of the po­lice ser­vice, in­clud­ing ACP Stephen Williams and In­spec­tor Steve Nan­doo, tried to bring com­fort. "It is so sad in a sit­u­a­tion like this be­cause a moth­er ex­pects that a child will bury her. A child ex­pects to bury a moth­er, not the oth­er way around," Sandy lat­er told re­porters.Ac­com­pa­nied by Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for the area, Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Min­is­ter Win­ston Pe­ters, Sandy said, "I was sit­ting there, look­ing at her and ask­ing, what can you tell her. You can't tell her you un­der­stand, be­cause you re­al­ly don't. The man­ner in which it hap­pened is just so sad."

Per­sad was the third of six chil­dren of Har­ry Per­sad and Rad­hi­ca Ma­haraj-Per­sad.Ma­haraj-Per­sad said all the 30-year-old Per­sad dreamt about while grow­ing up, was to fight crime, the very ac­tiv­i­ty which cost him his life on Thurs­day.The po­lice­man, an of­fi­cer with nine years' ser­vice and at­tached to the South East­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force, re­spond­ed to the Charu­ma For­est on a mar­i­jua­na erad­i­ca­tion ex­er­cise, around 2 pm, when his unit came un­der gun­fire from three men in at a camp­site.Al­though he was wear­ing a bul­let-proof vest, a bul­let from one of the gun­men, two of whom were killed, pierced an ex­posed area un­der his arm, en­ter­ing the stom­ach caus­ing his al­most im­me­di­ate death.

He was air­lift­ed by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty he­li­copter and tak­en to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where fu­tile at­tempts were made to re­sus­ci­tate him. The two men who were killed re­mained uniden­ti­fied up to press time. A search was still on yes­ter­day for the third sus­pect.A 9mm pis­tol and a pump ac­tion shot gun were found at the scene.An au­top­sy per­formed on the body yes­ter­day re­vealed that death was con­sis­tent with se­vere haem­or­rhag­ing and shock.

At the fam­i­ly home on Thurs­day night where friends and rel­a­tives had gath­ered, Ma­haraj-Per­sad said she last saw her son on Thurs­day morn­ing when he left home to at­tend the Rio Claro Mag­is­trates' Court where he had a mat­ter.She said he lat­er called to say he had to re­port for du­ty. Lit­tle could she imag­ine that was the last time she would hear his voice.Wip­ing away tears, she said, "On Thurs­day evening I got a call from the po­lice sta­tion and they say Anil get shot. I was so wor­ried but they told me it was not bad be­cause he was wear­ing a vest."On the long jour­ney from Rio Claro to San Fer­nan­do, a wor­ried Ma­haraj-Per­sad kept pray­ing that her son would be okay.How­ev­er, when she got to the hos­pi­tal, the re­al­i­ty hit her.

"When I reached to the hos­pi­tal the doc­tors told me they tried their best but they could not main­tain a pulse. I went to see my son at the mor­tu­ary and I could not bear it," she cried.She said Per­sad, was ex­pect­ed to mar­ry his fi­nance Shome Ramdeo in June, but the wed­ding had been post­poned due to the ill health of his fa­ther."He had no chil­dren, but he was anx­ious to start his own fam­i­ly," she dis­closed.She de­scribed him, "as a good child, a sweet­heart in the area. Every­one loved him. I don't know why this hap­pened to my good son," she cried.Sit­ting on a chair in shock, Per­sad's fa­ther Har­ry could on­ly mut­ter, "I am not feel­ing good at all about this."

He said his son was a hard work­er and a good crick­eter who played with the po­lice team in the night­time tour­na­ments in Rio Claro.In­ter­viewed at the Per­sad home, Sandy said the po­lice ser­vice will as­sist the fam­i­ly with fu­ner­al arrange­ments. He said coun­selling will be made avail­able.Ad­mit­ting that be­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer is risky, Sandy cau­tioned that in any op­er­a­tion the en­e­my em­ploys cer­tain strate­gies to avoid ap­pre­hen­sion. He said it was the du­ty of of­fi­cers or sol­diers to out-strate­gise the en­e­my.He ad­mit­ted, how­ev­er, that there are cer­tain cir­cum­stances which may arise and which can­not be pre­vent­ed.He said, "In my ex­pe­ri­ences you have a per­son in the for­est and 25 me­tres to the right there may be a field and you would not see it be­cause of the heavy un­der­growth.

"More of­ten than not it has been my ex­pe­ri­ence in the past, they would hear you first and in this sit­u­a­tion may be what hap­pened," he said.Sandy ap­pealed to cit­i­zens, es­pe­cial­ly the youth, to de­sist from us­ing mar­i­jua­na and oth­er drugs, and in so do­ing elim­i­nate the ready mar­ket.Per­sad will be cre­mat­ed at Mafek­ing on Sun­day fol­low­ing a cer­e­mo­ny at his Rio Claro home from 9 am. There will be a par­tial mil­i­tary send off, as a full com­ple­ment will not be avail­able for Sun­day.Of­fi­cers said arrange­ments are be­ing made for a full mil­i­tary fu­ner­al on Tues­day, but on that day one of Per­sad's broth­ers Vishal, is writ­ing the CAPE ex­am­i­na­tion.