An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

As in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue in­to the kid­nap­ping and sub­se­quent mur­der of busi­ness­man Shashi Anand Ram­per­sad, fel­low res­i­dents and friends of the de­ceased man ex­pressed shock and sad­ness at his mur­der.

Ram­per­sad, the own­er of Jit’s Stock­pile, was ab­duct­ed from Pierre Street, Lendore Vil­lage, En­ter­prise at 1.45 pm on No­vem­ber 21.

On Jan­u­ary 28, po­lice re­cov­ered a de­com­pos­ing body in a shal­low grave in Dibe, Long Cir­cu­lar, St James, sus­pect­ed to be that of Ram­per­sad.

Two Pierre Street res­i­dents, who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, said they felt Ram­per­sad’s death could have been avoid­ed if the po­lice had act­ed on in­for­ma­tion soon­er, ac­cus­ing the po­lice of mis­han­dling the mat­ter.

One man, who de­scribed him­self as a long-time friend of Ram­per­sad, said, “I was re­al­ly dis­ap­point­ed in what hap­pened. He was a good fel­la. Every­body in the com­mu­ni­ty re­al­ly ex­pect­ed that to hap­pen.

“I know him since I small and this is just a trag­ic in­ci­dent. It pains all of us, all the neigh­bours, every­body in the com­mu­ni­ty.”

Say­ing the com­mu­ni­ty re­mained trau­ma­tised af­ter the kid­nap­ping, he said they had felt a re­newed hope Ram­per­sad would have been found un­harmed, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter the State of Emer­gency (SoE) was en­forced on De­cem­ber 30, 2024.

“Peo­ple ain’t com­ing out­side,” he said, adding the com­mu­ni­ty was very dif­fer­ent now as res­i­dents were no longer lim­ing on the street or con­gre­gat­ing by one an­oth­er.

“Every­body just stay­ing in­side and keep­ing to them­selves ... but I not fear­ful for my life. God is in con­trol,” he added.

The sec­ond man, who came face to face with the gun­men, re­called the hor­ror of that day.

He said, “That wasn’t an easy thing nah.”

Ini­tial­ly be­liev­ing the car used by the kid­nap­pers was a taxi drop­ping off a rel­a­tive, he said, “When I see two gun­men fly out, I just drop my­self on the ground and start to run.”

Ad­mit­ting he didn’t know where he found the strength to run, he con­tin­ued, “Is he they want­ed. I know I not in noth­ing for gun­men to come here.”

He said Ram­per­sad’s af­fa­ble na­ture may have led to his kid­nap­ping.

“(He) was over too nice and that is what cause him to get in­to trou­ble,” the griev­ing man stat­ed.

“No strangers ain’t com­ing in here un­less some­body in here bring them ... so is peo­ple right round who know. Is not now, is long time this trace tor­ment­ed by crim­i­nals and it just con­tin­ues.”

He fought back tears as he held his palms up and whis­pered, “Al­lyuh coul­da let him go, the boy didn’t do al­lyuh noth­ing.”

An em­ploy­ee over­see­ing dai­ly op­er­a­tions at the stock­yard Ram­per­sad owned de­clined to speak with re­porters, while a vis­it to his rel­a­tives in Lange Park, proved un­suc­cess­ful.