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Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Bandits shoot running salesman outside bar

by

20160720

Fed up of be­ing robbed, a Pe­nal man's de­ci­sion to run from ban­dits proved dead­ly when he was shot in the chest out­side a San Fer­nan­do bar on Tues­day night.

A wound­ed Capildeo Har­ri­lal man­aged to walk back to Kan­hai's Bar, along Cipero Road, Re­trench Vil­lage, for help but de­spite doc­tors' ef­forts at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal he was dead with­in an hour.

Re­ports said Har­ri­lal, 58, a sales­man with Massy Dis­tri­b­u­tion Ltd, was with oth­ers cel­e­brat­ing the re­tire­ment of a col­league at the bar.

While sit­ting on a bench out­side, two men dressed in se­cu­ri­ty uni­forms, one armed with a gun, ap­proached and or­dered them to hand over their cash and jew­el­ry.

One man was robbed of a sil­ver beera and a cell­phone, and ac­cord­ing to one wit­ness, Har­ri­lal got up and told the ban­dits: "Nah! Al­lyuh cyah do me this."

The wit­ness said he did not know Har­ri­lal or his col­leagues but they all were lim­ing.He said Har­ri­lal ran and jumped in­to a neigh­bour's yard and was pur­sued by the gun­men who then shot him in the chest. The ban­dits ran off and board­ed a wait­ing car.

The wit­ness ex­plained: "I was sit­ting here, wait­ing for my broth­er. There were three oth­er fel­las and my­self sit­ting but I did not re­al­ly know them.

"While lis­ten­ing to them, I fell in­to the con­ver­sa­tion. An­oth­er fel­la walked across in se­cu­ri­ty uni­form with a gun and said 'Al­lyuh doh move from here, gimme al­lyuh wal­let and al­lyuh phone.' The man who got shot (Har­ri­lal) got up and told the fel­la, 'No! No! Al­lyuh cyah do me that.'

"I ran in­side and told the own­er of the bar, 'Boss, there is a rob­bery go­ing on' and when we walked out, we heard the shots.

"In my mind, I thought they burst a shot in the air but when we walked out, we saw the guy over the wall. He raised his jer­sey and said 'Al­lyuh I get shoot.'

"With that we opened the gate and he walked him back here and he sat down. He start­ed to go down un­til we put him to lie down on the ground and the po­lice came," the wit­ness added.He said the men were plan­ning a lime for Sat­ur­day.

High­way Pa­trol of­fi­cers re­spond­ed quick­ly and took Har­ri­lal to the hos­pi­tal and were able to get some in­for­ma­tion from him.

San Fer­nan­do CID and Ste Madeleine po­lice, led by ASP Rawle Ramdeo, In­sp Don Ga­jad­har and PC Mor­ris, processed the scene and car­ried out search­es for the sus­pects. How­ev­er, no one was held up to yes­ter­day.

Bar own­er Sas­tri Kan­hai said he was in­side watch­ing a soap opera as the bar had closed since 7.30 pm.

But as the pa­trons were still there, he said he left a side door open so that they could use the wash­room. He said it was on­ly when one of the men ran in­side to in­form him of the rob­bery that he knew some­thing hap­pened.

Gov­ern­ment is­fail­ing on crime

Since age 20 Har­ri­lal got in­to sales, start­ing off as cig­a­rette sales­man and ac­cord­ing to his broth­er, Don Har­ri­lal, he was robbed at least five times.Fear­ing for his safe­ty, he said Har­ri­lal trans­ferred to an­oth­er sec­tion.

But with crim­i­nals reign­ing freely in T&T, Don said, and de­spite his broth­er's best ef­forts to pro­tect him­self and his fam­i­ly, it count­ed for noth­ing.

Don, who lives in Cana­da with his wife and chil­dren, was speak­ing at a rel­a­tive's home in Debe. He said he on­ly came in on Fri­day to spend time with rel­a­tives. In­stead he will be bury­ing his broth­er.He crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment, say­ing noth­ing was be­ing done about crime in T&T and the de­tec­tion rate was un­ac­cept­able.He said al­though he would re­tire soon, he would not be re­turn­ing to T&T as he did not feel it was safe for his fam­i­ly.

"They are sav­ages. Mur­ders are no sur­prise to me but I am just shocked it hap­pened to one of us. I drink in my garage here be­cause I don't feel safe go­ing out.

"Now crime has ac­tu­al­ly hit home and it is a fact that the Gov­ern­ment of the day is not do­ing any­thing about it. The de­tec­tion rate is un­der ten per cent and it is tru­ly sad that crime in this coun­try has reached this lev­el," Don added.He said he would rather ad­vise peo­ple to vis­it Bar­ba­dos or Grena­da than risk com­ing to T&T.


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