KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

While many moth­ers were cel­e­brat­ed yes­ter­day, Sav­it­ri Ra­moutar found her­self be­ing con­soled by rel­a­tives and friends fol­low­ing her hus­band Adil Mo­hammed’s mur­der. It was the sec­ond time her nine-year-old daugh­ter, Sama­ra, had suf­fered such a loss on Moth­er’s Day, as her fa­ther died on the same day five years ago.

“She is tak­ing it re­al hard be­cause her first dad died when she was two and a half, so he (Adil) filled in that po­si­tion. He (Mo­hammed) was the fa­ther she knew who gave and made every­thing for her,” Ra­moutar said.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, some­one pass­ing along Per­ry Young Road, Princes Town, con­tact­ed po­lice at 5 pm Sat­ur­day, in­form­ing them of a body on the road­side. Po­lice said there ap­peared to be a gun­shot wound on the vic­tim’s head.

Rel­a­tives re­spond­ed to the scene and con­firmed it was Mo­hammed, 33, a Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion labour­er. How­ev­er, they did not find the Toy­ota Corol­la car he left home with.

Speak­ing at her Princes Town home yes­ter­day, Ra­moutar re­called last talk­ing to Mo­hammed at 5.40 pm on Fri­day, when he left home to put gas in the car and bring back a bar­be­cue din­ner for Sama­ra.

Ra­moutar ex­pect­ed him to re­turn with­in an hour, and when he did not, she called his phone around 8.35 pm but it ap­peared to be off.

Know­ing he some­times worked as a PH taxi dri­ver, she as­sumed he got a trip and would re­turn soon. At 9 pm, she re­alised some­thing was wrong, as it was un­like Mo­hammed to stay out late.

By 10 pm, Sama­ra had eat­en some­thing else and went to bed, but Ra­moutar await­ed Mo­hammed’s re­turn. By 1 am Sat­ur­day, she sur­mised he had car prob­lems, so she walked up the street and called Mo­hammed’s fa­ther. From there, rel­a­tives start­ed search­ing, re­port­ing his dis­ap­pear­ance to Princes Town po­lice and go­ing to the hos­pi­tals.

Hunters Search and Res­cue (HSR) joined in, search­ing com­mu­ni­ties along the M2 Ring Road, Palmyra, King’s Wharf, St John’s Vil­lage, Bar­rack­pore and Ste Madeleine. All this time, Ra­moutar did not think Mo­hammed was dead.

“I was look­ing out for him walk­ing, com­ing from some­where. I said to my­self now, some­thing is not adding up, we would see him, but as day kept com­ing to night and noth­ing hap­pened, I said it was some­thing worse,” Ra­moutar said.

They widened the search to Fe­lic­i­ty, Cou­va, Hard­bar­gain, Point Fortin and St Mary’s.

Ra­moutar was at home with rel­a­tives on Sat­ur­day night when some­one from HSR called, in­form­ing the fam­i­ly of a body dis­cov­ered in Princes Town. Mo­hammed’s fa­ther went to the scene and con­firmed it was him.

It is now a con­fus­ing time for the fam­i­ly, as Ra­moutar said no one threat­ened Mo­hammed or had a prob­lem with him. De­scrib­ing him as a kind, lov­ing, car­ing, and giv­ing fam­i­ly man, neigh­bours said they were in shock.

“We had a lit­tle rob­bery in our shop years ago, but not like this. We would see it on the news and read it on Face­book, but we did not know it would come knock­ing on our doorstep. He used to al­ways say that if some­body came and in­ter­fered with him, he would fight back; he would deal with them. Just as he said, it was like he did it. He fought for his life.”

De­tec­tives from the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions: Re­gion Three are in­ves­ti­gat­ing Mo­hammed’s mur­der, but there were no mo­tives or leads up to yes­ter­day.