Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardain.co.tt

Just two weeks af­ter the daugh­ter of a San Fer­nan­do busi­ness­man was tar­get­ed in a brazen shoot­ing, there has been an­oth­er at­tack on the fam­i­ly—this time claim­ing the life of a 21-year-old em­ploy­ee.

Saleem Ab­dool was fa­tal­ly shot while dri­ving a com­pa­ny ve­hi­cle yes­ter­day. In­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve the re­al tar­get might have been the busi­ness­man’s son who was in an­oth­er ve­hi­cle just ahead of Ab­dool.

Just be­fore 1 pm, Ab­dool was dri­ving a Toy­ota Hilux be­hind a white un­li­cenced Mer­cedes-Benz dri­ven by the busi­ness­man’s son along the Gol­con­da Con­nec­tor Road. They were on their way to drop off the Mer­cedes-Benz for a client.

As the ve­hi­cles slowed near the Union Hall traf­fic light in­ter­sec­tion near VM­COTT, an­oth­er ve­hi­cle pulled along­side the Hilux and opened fire. Ab­dool was struck in the up­per body. He was tak­en to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, where he lat­er died while un­der­go­ing emer­gency surgery. The busi­ness­man’s son was not in­jured.

Ab­dool worked for an au­to­mo­bile busi­ness owned by the fam­i­ly. Sev­er­al so­cial me­dia users ex­pressed out­rage over the in­ci­dent and those who knew Ab­dool de­scribed him as hum­ble and am­bi­tious.

The fa­tal shoot­ing fol­lows an in­ci­dent on May 13 when the busi­ness­man’s daugh­ter was am­bushed along the South Trunk Road. The as­sailant col­lid­ed with the rear of her Range Rover and as she stopped, the dri­ver pulled along­side her. Think­ing it was a hit-and-run sit­u­a­tion, she be­gan record­ing with her cell­phone. The dri­ver opened fire be­fore flee­ing the scene. She was not in­jured.

Fol­low­ing that at­tack, her fa­ther, Ra­bindranath Ma­haraj, own­er of R&J Cell Tech, told re­porters the shoot­ing was an at­tempt on his daugh­ter’s life. He said over the past year, his fam­i­ly had been the tar­get of vi­o­lent at­tacks, in­clud­ing the kid­nap­ping of his son, two at­tempt­ed kid­nap­pings of an­oth­er daugh­ter, and 14 rob­beries.

Po­lice have not yet de­ter­mined why the Ma­haraj fam­i­ly is be­ing tar­get­ed. Sev­er­al peo­ple took to so­cial me­dia to pay trib­ute to Ab­dool yes­ter­day.

One of the posts, from the Von haus Moon Rot­tweil­er Ken­nel stat­ed: “In ho­n­our of Saleem Ab­dool ... A friend turned fam­i­ly ... A life that should not have been lost ... The #von­haus­moon fam­i­ly ex­press­es con­do­lences to all those who knew this young man. “We start­ed our ken­nel 5 years ago and he as been with our dogs train­ing and show­ing them for 4 years ... From our old­est dogs to our pup­pies that have grown up ... He will more than be missed. RIP:

Di­ana Ram­gob­in Sa­roop wrote: “Nah Je­sus, nah. I was hop­ing he had it wrong yk . Saleem Ab­dool I will miss you. Al­ways laugh­ing and “yea cuz I go see yuh” This one hit me hard.”

An­oth­er per­son post­ed: “Al­ways smil­ing and laugh­ing.”

Of­fi­cers from the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Re­gion 3 are in­ves­ti­gat­ing Ab­dool’s mur­der.