Derek Achong

A 40-year-old man is the fourth mur­der vic­tim for the year af­ter a shoot­ing on Tues­day in Barataria. Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, around 7.45 pm res­i­dents of Mt Hope Place, Barataria, called the po­lice af­ter hear­ing sev­er­al gun­shots.

A group of of­fi­cers, su­per­vised by Supt John Daniel, re­spond­ed and found Dhani­ram Se­mal, of Irv­ing Street, Pe­tit Bourg, ly­ing un­con­scious at the road­side near to a drain. Se­mal's killing took the mur­der toll to four. Po­lice in­ter­viewed sev­er­al res­i­dents but all said they did not see his at­tack­er. He was tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope, where he died.

Homi­cide de­tec­tives said Se­mal had no crim­i­nal record. A mo­tive for his mur­der has not been de­ter­mined. Of the four mur­ders for the year, two, in­clud­ing Se­mal's, have oc­curred in the Barataria area. The oth­er two hap­pened on Sun­day night, one on Nel­son Street, Port-of-Spain, and the oth­er at Dan Kel­ly, Laven­tille. Last Thurs­day, Kevin Dover, 26, of Ninth Av­enue, Barataria, was shot and killed while lim­ing with friends out­side a shop near his home.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors have since held two sus­pects be­lieved to be the gun­men who at­tacked Dover. The fig­ure for 2012, ac­cord­ing to sta­tis­tics re­leased by the Po­lice Ser­vice's Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis De­part­ment (CA­PA) last week, is 377. Cpls Seales and David­son of the Mor­vant Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tion De­part­ment (CID) are prob­ing Se­mal's mur­der.