Nir­mal Baldeo was at a bar­ber sa­loon on Thurs­day night wait­ing to get a hair­cut for his 30th birth­day when he got a phone call. He left telling the bar­ber he would re­turn. Two hours lat­er, he wa found in the back­seat of his com­pa­ny's ve­hi­cle with his throat slit. Po­lice are yet to de­ter­mine a mo­tive for the mur­der but have de­tained a 30-year-old man for ques­tion­ing. Baldeo's rel­a­tives had to wait un­til the cur­few end­ed yes­ter­day morn­ing to go the San Fer­nan­do mor­tu­ary, then had to wait sev­er­al hours un­til it opened around 8 am to iden­ti­fy his body. Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port at around 8 pm on Thurs­day an anony­mous caller con­tact­ed the Cou­va Po­lice Sta­tion and re­port­ed that a white AD Wag­on was seen parked at Dow Vil­lage, Cal­i­for­nia, with the en­gine run­ning and the head­lights on.

Of­fi­cers went to the scene and saw Baldeo's body ly­ing across the back­seat of the ve­hi­cle. His throat had been slit. The Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer vis­it­ed the scene and or­dered the body re­moved to the San Fer­nan­do Mor­tu­ary. A post mortem was sched­uled for yes­ter­day. At Laloo Trace, Macaulay, where Baldeo lived with his moth­er and sis­ter, sev­er­al rel­a­tives and friends were gath­ered. His cousin, Sunil Laloo, said they had no idea why any­one would want to kill him. He said: "Nir­mal is a non-con­fronta­tion per­son. He would not have got­ten him­self in bad com­pa­ny nor with any­one who would have put his life in dan­ger. " He does not even drink al­co­hol. He is a re­spon­si­ble per­son and is al­ways a des­ig­nat­ed dri­ver."

Laloo said the fam­i­ly did not sleep af­ter re­ceiv­ing the news of the mur­der at 11 pm on Thurs­day. "We were still hop­ing to get a call from him or hear that it was a mis­take that he was not killed," he added. Laloo said Baldeo, a plant in­spec­tor at Caribbean Petro­chem­i­cals In­spec­tion Ser­vices Lim­it­ed, left work ear­ly to pre­pare for his birth­day. "He went for a hair­cut at a bar­ber at Soledad Road. While there he re­ceived a phone call around 6 pm and he told the bar­ber he was com­ing back and to save his place." He said one of Baldeo's cell­phones was miss­ing but they did not know whether he re­ceived the call on that phone. Homi­cide of­fi­cers, in­clud­ing Sgt An­der­son Pa­ri­man, vis­it­ed the scene and are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.