Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son.co.tt

Hav­ing been the vic­tim of sev­er­al rob­beries in the past, a Princes Town busi­ness­man was mur­dered af­ter crim­i­nals am­bushed him on Sat­ur­day night.

Rakesh Gun­ness, 42, was shot sev­er­al times short­ly af­ter he closed his busi­ness place, Quick E Su­per­mar­ket, at Moru­ga Road, Pe­tit Café.

The busi­ness place is at the front of his fam­i­ly’s home. Gun­ness, who lived with his fi­ancé, was re­vers­ing out of the yard around 7 pm to go home. How­ev­er, he was am­bushed by two gun­men who were wait­ing in some near­by trees for him. They fired sev­er­al shots at his car, strik­ing him sev­er­al times.

His fam­i­ly took him to the Princes Town Health Fa­cil­i­ty but it was too late by the time they got there.

As he tried to con­tain his tears at the fam­i­ly’s home yes­ter­day, Gun­ness’ el­dest broth­er, Rishi, said his sib­ling was help­ful and well-loved in the com­mu­ni­ty. He said Gun­ness helped every­one and gave youths in the com­mu­ni­ty em­ploy­ment.

Rishi re­called that when he got re­trenched from Petrotrin, he did not know what to do and he had two chil­dren and a mort­gage.

With his eyes full of tears, he said, “I was em­ployed at Petrotrin and when the com­pa­ny shut down, Rakesh in­vit­ed me to come and work in the su­per­mar­ket to help my fam­i­ly...”

He said he even­tu­al­ly opened his own elec­tron­ic busi­ness in­side the su­per­mar­ket build­ing.

Rishi said his oth­er broth­er (not Gun­ness) al­so runs an agro-busi­ness in the same build­ing.

“In­no­cent, in­no­cent per­son was killed,” he lament­ed. Re­call­ing the in­ci­dent, he said he heard about ten gun­shots. Rishi rushed out of his near­by home and heard his moth­er cry­ing and call­ing Gun­ness’ name.

“He did not die on the spot. He died halfway to the hos­pi­tal,” he said.

Gun­ness’ sis­ter, who al­so owns the su­per­mar­ket, said while noth­ing was tak­en from her broth­er, their busi­ness had been robbed sev­er­al times and her broth­er al­so re­ceived death threats. She said there are sev­er­al re­ports at the po­lice sta­tion.

The su­per­mar­ket was opened more than 20 years ago, but she said in re­cent years there have been sev­er­al rob­beries. One of her broth­ers got shot dur­ing a rob­bery in 2019.

Last De­cem­ber, Rishi said there was an at­tempt­ed rob­bery at his broth­er’s agro shop. Lament­ing the crime and vi­o­lence in the coun­try, he called on peo­ple to unite and voice their dis­con­tent.

“He was very help­ful and to lose him like this, I ask T&T to unite some­how and some­how, Trinidad is not a nice place. Trinidad is not a re­al place,” he lament­ed.

Rishi said he had been con­sid­er­ing ex­pand­ing his busi­ness but was now in two minds.

“I don’t know what to do now. I don’t want my chil­dren to end up like that crime sit­u­a­tion…” he said.

Homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tors were still try­ing to de­ter­mine a mo­tive for the killing yes­ter­day.