Po­lice have de­scribed the killing of two men in Va­len­cia yes­ter­day as a hit. The men were shot in their fore­heads and then rid­dled with bul­lets about their bod­ies along a road lead­ing to WASA's San­gre Grande Well #2, but re­mained uniden­ti­fied up to press time last night.

One se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer said the men fit the de­scrip­tion of sus­pects want­ed in the mur­der of se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer Vi­jay Maraj, who was shot dead when four ban­dits opened fire on cus­tomers dur­ing a rob­bery at the Can­tonese Su­per­store at Ma­tu­ri­ta last Sat­ur­day.

A WASA em­ploy­ee who was on his way to work found the bod­ies around 6.15 am yes­ter­day.

At first, the em­ploy­ee, a pump at­ten­dant, told po­lice he thought the men, both of African de­scent, were va­grants, but he soon re­alised oth­er­wise and con­tact­ed the po­lice.

A team of po­lice un­der Snr Supt John Trim, Supt Robert Phillip, ASP Robain, In­sp Tom, Ag In­sp Lutch­man, and Sgts Fuentes, Pierre, and Lopez vis­it­ed the scene. They were lat­er joined by of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Re­gion II, Arou­ca.

Po­lice be­lieve the men were ex­e­cut­ed else­where and tak­en to Va­len­cia, where their killers then sprayed their bod­ies with more bul­lets. The men were dressed in three-quar­ter den­im pants, with one of them wear­ing a lilac jer­sey and the oth­er a mul­ti-coloured T-shirt. Po­lice said the men could be in their ear­ly 20s.

Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Ob­in­ga viewed the bod­ies and or­dered them re­moved to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, for au­top­sies.

Supt Robert Phillip of the San­gre Grande Po­lice Sta­tion is in­ves­ti­gat­ing.

Po­lice are ask­ing the pub­lic to con­tact the San­gre Grande Po­lice Sta­tion at 668-2444 or 691-0133, or any po­lice sta­tion, if they have any in­for­ma­tion that can as­sist in iden­ti­fy­ing the bod­ies.

Snr Supt Trim, Com­man­der of East­ern Di­vi­sion Po­lice, said the two killings had tak­en the toll for the re­gion to 30 for the year. The over­all mur­der toll for the year was 326 up to last night. He said in an ef­fort to re­duce crime they had in­creased pa­trols and there was a 24-hour po­lice pres­ence along the coast and in hot spots.