Through his grief and pain yesterday, a relative of the slain father of one Adesh Heeralal appealed to “bad boys” to put down the guns.
“Please refrain from your wicked ways and drop the gun, live the right way, please. We have family, you have a mother and children too. You have sisters and brothers. You will not like the same to happen to them. Please, please I beseech you, drop your gun, refrain from your wicked ways, and ask God to forgive you, even though my nephew done dead,” pleaded Rajendra Rampersad.
He was speaking with reporters at Heeralal’s home at Wilson Road in Penal where he (Heeralal) lived with his wife, Menisha Bridgemohan, and his 17-month-old son.
Through her tears, Bridgemohan recalled that just before 8 pm on Monday, a man known to them called out to her husband and walked a distance away. Heeralal, a linesman, followed him while Bridgemohan went back inside the house because their baby was sleeping. “And within five to six minutes I just heard like fireworks. I didn’t know if he was shot and I did not know what was going on. He was running in the back and calling out to his father. I tried calling him and I did not get him.” She called his father. He told her Heeralal got shot and to call the police.
When she ran across to her father-in-law’s home with her baby, she said, “he was practically dead already.” He had at least four gunshot wounds to his body.
They placed him in the tray of a van and took him to the Siparia Health Facility where he was pronounced dead. “I don’t know why,” cried Bridgemohan who claimed her husband had no enemies and had received no threats.
Heeralal’s sister Asha Sarjulal believes her brother was mistaken for someone else because he was a loveable person who was not involved in any illegal activities. She said last Thursday she got married and planned to invite him to her home this weekend to give him the good news.
Lamenting the crime situation, she said, “You don’t know who going to pull out a gun and shoot you for nothing. I see on the news people getting killed for bad drive and things. My brother, all he wanted was a child, a son. He only get his son for one year.”
Bridgemohan said her husband was the sole breadwinner in the family and now her life has been turned upside down. “I don’t know what I’m going to do now, I just don’t know,” she lamented.
Investigators retrieved two spent 9 mm casings and a projectile at the scene. The motive for his murder was unknown up to late yesterday, police said. Officers of the Homicide Bureau of Investigations Region 3 are investigating.