Sense­less and reck­less. 

This is how Kevon Lewis de­scribed the mur­der of his un­cle, Siparia labour­er Leroy Si­fontis, who was held up on his way to work yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Si­fontis, 38, fond­ly known as Bhal, was shot and killed as he jumped from a mov­ing “taxi” af­ter the dri­ver and a front-seat pas­sen­ger tried to rob him in Siparia.

An­oth­er vil­lager, who had en­tered the ve­hi­cle with Si­fontis, was al­so shot and is ward­ed in a sta­ble con­di­tion at the hos­pi­tal.

Si­fontis and a fel­low vil­lager, age 20, were on their way to work at 5.10 am when a ve­hi­cle stopped at the junc­tion of Darsan Trace, along the Siparia Old Road, and in­di­cat­ed that they were work­ing the Fyz­abad route. 

The men en­tered the back seat but when the ve­hi­cle drove about 150 feet away, the front seat pas­sen­ger point­ed a gun at them and an­nounced a rob­bery.

Si­fontis, who was dressed in an or­ange cov­er­all and the oth­er vic­tim opened the door, and as they at­tempt­ed to jump out of the ve­hi­cle they were shot. They fell on the side of the road.

Si­fontis was shot in the side of his chest and died at the scene while the oth­er man was shot in his but­tocks. 

Still try­ing to come to terms with his un­cle’s mur­der, Ke­ston Lewis said yes­ter­day was the first day of the week his un­cle was go­ing to work. He said his un­cle on­ly had trav­el­ling mon­ey on him be­cause he had planned to overnight at his job site in Ch­agua­nas and was sup­posed to col­lect his pay to­day.

“Re­al fail­ure with them youth man. Al­lyuh shoot him for what? He don’t in­ter­fere with no­body and he don’t ask no­body for noth­ing.” 

He said his un­cle would usu­al­ly walk to Siparia to get trans­port, “but this morn­ing, he (Si­fontis) think God was with him be­cause as he reach here he get a car.”

Lament­ing that his un­cle was go­ing to work to earn an hon­est dol­lar, he said his un­cle told the gun­man, “I eh have noth­ing.” 

He said the young man who was with his un­cle was the first to open the door to es­cape, and the gun­man shot at him and then his un­cle.

Shak­ing his head, he said, “Reck­less. These youths and them, no re­morse, them just ... I don’t know what to say again. Sense­less, in­no­cent fel­lah. In­no­cents killing.”

He said his un­cle lived a sim­ple life.

“Go to work for the week. Come home on a Fri­day, spend the week­end and go back to work Mon­day. But, through the Bor­ough Day cel­e­bra­tions, he end up go­ing a lit­tle longer (stay­ing home) and it cost him his life.”

To the young peo­ple com­mit­ting crimes, he said, “It not mak­ing sense. Find a lil job, hold down a lil and live and be com­fort­able and make every­body else com­fort­able be­cause look at what they did, they up­set a whole com­mu­ni­ty...”

Ex­press­ing con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly, Fyz­abad MP Lack­ram Bo­doe said Si­fontis was just try­ing to find his way to work.  

“This is very, very sad. It ap­pears now that the ban­dits have reached the stage of just dri­ving around to find in­no­cent vic­tims.”

Again call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to fix the crime prob­lem in the coun­try, Bo­doe said cit­i­zens are pan­ick­ing and stressed as they go about their dai­ly lives.