Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Hours af­ter her son Robert Khan was shot dead as he slept yes­ter­day morn­ing, griev­ing moth­er of nine Han­if­fa Khan says she is pray­ing to God to for­give his killers and for them to "come to their sens­es and know what they did is not right." Khan, 35, a fa­ther of two, was shot twice as he slept in his down­stairs apart­ment at his fam­i­ly's home at Lengua Road, In­di­an Walk, Moru­ga, around 6 am yes­ter­day. As she clutched a pho­to of her slain son, Han­if­fa, 62, said the fam­i­ly was stunned by his vi­o­lent death. She said: "We was not ex­pect­ing this from he. He was nev­er in noth­ing, he was not in drugs. He used to drink he lit­tle rum and thing but any­thing else, no. He was a qui­et and lov­ing to every­body. He re­spect­ed every­body."

The griev­ing woman said Khan did not have any en­e­mies and had not re­ceived any threats be­fore the in­ci­dent. She said the fam­i­ly had been left with unan­swered ques­tions since noth­ing was stolen from Khan's apart­ment. "I don't think they come to rob or they would have come up­stairs," she said. "Down­stairs do not have any­thing... noth­ing was stolen. It was not a rob­bery. I think they came to kill him and I don't know the rea­son." She said she was ly­ing in her bed around 6 am when she heard two loud ex­plo­sions. One of Khan's sons ran out of his bed­room and asked her about the noise.

"He run down­stairs and he open he fa­ther door and he say 'Mam­mie some­body kill meh fa­ther' and that was it...I ain't go down­stairs up to this time," Han­if­fa said. Han­if­fa said while she want­ed jus­tice for her son, she would not sup­port his killers be­ing hanged. "I would say peo­ple does make mis­takes and God is a for­giv­ing God and we should for­give if we want for­give­ness too," she said. "That same per­son who do this act could go to the Lord and He could for­give him I be­lieve that and that is what my be­lief is."

An au­top­sy is ex­pect­ed to be per­formed to­day.

No sus­pects have been ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with killing. Last May, one of Khan's cousins was gunned down. His moth­er, how­ev­er, said she did not be­lieve there was a con­nec­tion be­tween the two killings. Cpl Halls, of the Princes Town Po­lice Sta­tion, is con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.