Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

A 13-year-old boy was killed while his fa­ther and step­moth­er were wound­ed dur­ing a home in­va­sion at their Union Park East home on Thurs­day night.

Kr­is­han Kan­hai died on the floor of his home while his fa­ther, Kr­ish­na Kan­hai and step­moth­er, Leela Pariag, were tak­en to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

The cou­ple’s five-year-old son es­caped un­harmed af­ter run­ning to a neigh­bour’s home seek­ing help. The fam­i­ly sold dou­bles in Mara­bel­la.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve rob­bery may have been the mo­tive for the at­tack.

Res­i­dents said the cou­ple had re­cent­ly built their home and moved in­to the area three months ago.

De­scrib­ing them as qui­et and hard­work­ing peo­ple, neigh­bours ex­pressed shock over the at­tack and lament­ed the coun­try’s ris­ing crime prob­lem.

“What re­al­ly go­ing on in this coun­try, boy? No­body safe at all,” a res­i­dent said.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, a rel­a­tive said it was pos­si­ble the fam­i­ly may have been tar­get­ed be­cause of their dou­bles busi­ness.

Crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors re­cov­ered three 9mm shell cas­ings. In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.

An­oth­er dou­bles ven­dor was al­so at­tacked ear­li­er that day and robbed of $11,200.

Po­lice said around 1.45 am, the dou­bles ven­dor was prepar­ing to leave for work at his Pe­nal home when he was con­front­ed by two men, one armed with a firearm, and a woman.

The trio an­nounced a rob­bery and de­mand­ed mon­ey. The vic­tim was tak­en in­to his bed­room, where two of the sus­pects ran­sacked the room be­fore steal­ing the mon­ey. Pe­nal po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the case.

Last month, po­lice fa­tal­ly shot a sus­pect in the Union Park East com­mu­ni­ty who was be­lieved to be con­nect­ed to a home in­va­sion gang.

The TTPS said that based on in­tel­li­gence about an im­mi­nent at­tack, of­fi­cers con­front­ed a group of armed sus­pects who at­tempt­ed to flee in­to near­by bush­es. Two sus­pects point­ed firearms at of­fi­cers who opened fire, killing Nathaniel “Prack” Sim­mons. Two oth­er men were ar­rest­ed. Po­lice said the op­er­a­tion was part of an ag­gres­sive crack­down on vi­o­lent home in­va­sion syn­di­cates in south Trinidad.