In a hor­ri­fy­ing home in­va­sion, thieves stormed Am­i­na Mo­hammed’s Cou­va home bare-hand­ed, smashed a kitchen win­dow, and stabbed her to death with her own knife, even af­ter they ob­tained $10,000 in cash and jew­ellery dur­ing a Sat­ur­day night rob­bery.

Po­lice said Mo­hammed, 68, of Nan­cy Street, Lisas Gar­dens, Cou­va suf­fered four stab wounds to the neck even though she pas­sive­ly co­op­er­at­ed with her at­tack­ers.

The re­tired Ren­tok­il su­per­vi­sor had been dish­ing out food for her hus­band, Nazem Mo­hammed, 74, when the in­trud­ers struck by smash­ing a glass por­tion of their kitchen win­dow and gain­ing ac­cess in­side.

Speak­ing to re­porters yes­ter­day, Mo­hammed’s on­ly son, Ah­mad Saleem Mo­hammed, de­scribed the har­row­ing or­deal, re­veal­ing that he cra­dled his moth­er ten­der­ly as her blood ran down his hands.

“They came to get mon­ey and jew­ellery, and they still killed her,” he said.

De­scrib­ing Mo­hammed, Ah­mad said, “My mom is very pas­sive. She would not have re­sist­ed or re­tal­i­at­ed.”

The thieves, who wore dark cloth­ing with masks cov­er­ing their faces, re­port­ed­ly en­tered the house by climb­ing over a neigh­bour’s wall.

Smash­ing a pri­va­cy glass win­dow in the kitchen, they im­pro­vised us­ing kitchen knives from the Mo­hammeds’ own home.

Ah­mad re­count­ed his fa­ther’s chill­ing ac­count of the events: “My mom was tak­ing out din­ner for Dad. They smashed the kitchen door. They knew the lay­out of the house. They switched off the lights and said, ‘Where the mon­ey?’ Af­ter get­ting less than $10,000, they tied up my par­ents and asked for jew­ellery. My mom car­ried them to the bed­room. That’s where they killed her.”

He said Nazem, tied up in the liv­ing room, man­aged to free him­self on­ly to find Mo­hammed un­re­spon­sive in the bed­room, bleed­ing from the neck.

Ah­mad said his fa­ther, though strict and me­thod­i­cal by na­ture, was deeply trau­ma­tised by the tragedy as he and his wife had been to­geth­er for decades.

Ah­mad said he ar­rived at his par­ents’ house and tried to save his moth­er’s life.

“I cra­dled her neck, think­ing she was still alive. Blood and mus­cle tis­sue were com­ing on my hand, and her skin was still warm. I told the po­lice to take her to the hos­pi­tal now be­cause the am­bu­lance wouldn’t reach.”

De­spite his ef­forts, Mo­hammed was de­clared dead at the hos­pi­tal.

Ah­mad ex­pressed out­rage at the grow­ing law­less­ness in T&T, call­ing the crime sit­u­a­tion “out of con­trol.”

“When you have peo­ple mak­ing jail and say­ing they’re not afraid, that’s when you can snuff some­one’s life out even af­ter you get mon­ey and jew­ellery,” he said.

“These men have no re­morse or care. They have no be­lief in Judge­ment Day or the af­ter­life.”

Ah­mad said he be­lieved the at­tack­ers had been mon­i­tor­ing the fam­i­ly for weeks.

“I took my par­ents to the bank two Fri­days back to with­draw about $10,000. I think the house was be­ing marked.”

He said his fam­i­ly has lived in Lisas Gar­dens since 1986.

Ah­mad de­scribed his par­ents as gen­er­ous, deeply re­li­gious in­di­vid­u­als who were well-re­spect­ed in their com­mu­ni­ty.

“We are prac­tic­ing Mus­lims. We grew up shar­ing with our neigh­bours—al­ways giv­ing them the best fruits from our trees be­fore keep­ing any for our­selves.”

He added, “We don’t have racism in our neigh­bour­hood, In­di­an or African. We have good neigh­bours. But the crime in this coun­try is re­lent­less.”

Po­lice have so far clas­si­fied the mur­der as a rob­bery. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said dur­ing the rob­bery, one of the thieves claimed he was owed $140,000 for three years by a rel­a­tive of the Mo­hammed fam­i­ly.

ASP Ma­haraj of Homi­cide Re­gion 3, In­sp Estra­da, W/Cpl Dy­er-Bap­tiste and PC Noel are in­ves­ti­gat­ing. An au­top­sy is sched­uled to be done at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre to­day.

Any­one with in­for­ma­tion on the mur­der can con­tact Crimestop­pers at 800-TIPS or call the po­lice.

‘She was kind and giv­ing’

Mean­while, the pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Mus­lim Women’s Or­gan­i­sa­tion of T&T, Zeno­bia Mo­hammed said she had the plea­sure of know­ing the vic­tim.

She tear­ful­ly said, “She was one you could em­u­late. She was so kind and giv­ing.”

Zeno­bia said Mo­hammed had been a de­vout Mus­lim who at­tend­ed mosque every Fri­day and prayed for her fam­i­ly, friends and fel­low mem­bers.

Re­veal­ing their mem­bers were trau­ma­tised by the in­ci­dent, Mo­hammed asked, “Why would some­body do ... what is hap­pen­ing to our so­ci­ety? What is hap­pen­ing to the crim­i­nal el­e­ment? Why hor­rif­ic like that?”

She ques­tioned, “If you had stolen from them, why did you have to slit her throat and kill her?”

As the Christ­mas hol­i­day draws clos­er, Mo­hammed asked, “What hap­pened to peace and com­pas­sion and hu­man­i­ty?”

She chal­lenged the Gov­ern­ment and au­thor­i­ties to do bet­ter to pro­tect cit­i­zens who had spent their lives mak­ing pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tions, and who now seemed to be un­der at­tack by the crim­i­nal el­e­ment.