RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Hours af­ter San Fer­nan­do busi­ness­man Christo­pher Ra­jbal­ly was shot and killed out­side a casi­no, the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty called on law en­force­ment to ad­dress the in­flux of high-pow­ered weapons en­ter­ing T&T.

Pres­i­dent of the Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber of Com­merce Ki­ran Singh ques­tioned the ef­fec­tive­ness of Cus­toms and Ex­cise in pre­vent­ing il­le­gal firearms from en­ter­ing the coun­try. Singh not­ed that while le­git­i­mate busi­ness­peo­ple face strin­gent scruti­ny, il­le­gal guns and am­mu­ni­tion con­tin­ue to reach the streets un­de­tect­ed.

“Cus­toms is sup­posed to have scan­ners work­ing, yet they seem more fo­cused on le­git­i­mate items,” Singh said.

“Re­cent­ly, they seized goods from a busi­ness­woman im­port­ing adult toys, yet these high-pow­ered weapons and am­mu­ni­tion are en­ter­ing the coun­try. We need an­swers,” he stressed.

Singh ex­pressed con­cern over the ac­cess to ex­pen­sive weapons used in vi­o­lent crimes.

“Where are these guns com­ing from? How are youths ob­tain­ing them?” he asked.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (South/Cen­tral) Wayne Mys­tar for com­ment but, he was un­avail­able.

Ra­jbal­ly, 36, own­er of Top Dog Pet Shop, was am­bushed out­side V’s Casi­no at South­land Mall, Cross Cross­ing, San Fer­nan­do, on Thurs­day night. Sur­veil­lance footage cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia showed a white Toy­ota Aqua block­ing Ra­jbal­ly’s grey Range Rover. Two men ex­it­ed the ve­hi­cle and fired mul­ti­ple rounds at Ra­jbal­ly, who was killed on the spot. A fe­male com­pan­ion in the front pas­sen­ger seat was al­so shot. She sur­vived but her con­di­tion re­mains un­known.

Po­lice said the shoot­ing was re­port­ed at 10.49 pm. Re­spond­ing of­fi­cers ar­rived with­in min­utes to find Ra­jbal­ly slumped in the dri­ver’s seat with mul­ti­ple gun­shot wounds.

Singh ques­tioned whether busi­ness own­ers are safe in their own com­mu­ni­ties.

“Are we not al­lowed to tra­verse freely, even at night? Must we bar­ri­cade our­selves be­hind closed doors?” Singh asked.

Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly con­demned the killing, de­scrib­ing Ra­jbal­ly’s fam­i­ly as val­ued mem­bers of the Fe­lic­i­ty com­mu­ni­ty. Ram­bal­ly not­ed the fam­i­ly’s con­tri­bu­tions to sports and youth de­vel­op­ment through an an­nu­al crick­et camp.

This is the sec­ond mur­der to have oc­curred in the com­pound of South­land Mall this year. In Ju­ly, Ricky Loach, a 58-year-old pro­fes­sion­al gam­bler from South Oropouche, was dis­cov­ered un­re­spon­sive in the dri­ver’s seat of his car parked on the com­pound of V’s Mem­bers Club near Union Hall, San Fer­nan­do.

Po­lice said Loach had ex­it­ed the casi­no around 11 pm and en­tered his ve­hi­cle in the car park. Short­ly af­ter, a man came out of a white Nis­san Ti­i­da parked near­by, ap­proached Loach, and shot him mul­ti­ple times be­fore re­turn­ing to the Ti­i­da and speed­ing away.

Sources said the mur­ders have caused busi­ness own­ers to hire pri­vate guards and take ex­tra pre­cau­tions.