RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Amid the mid-morn­ing bus­tle, Sharaz Ageemoolar walked in­to an in­sur­ance com­pa­ny’s of­fice in San Fer­nan­do and shot his ex-wife Anis­sa Ra­j­gob­in-Ageemoolar twice, be­fore killing him­self af­ter elud­ing po­lice hav­ing es­caped from the scene of his crime.

Hours be­fore com­mit­ting sui­cide, Sharaz had hi­jacked a car out­side the Cross Cross­ing Shop­ping Cen­tre and killed an in­no­cent by­stander Rosario Ramd­han, a 24-year-old Spring­vale, Clax­ton Bay res­i­dent who de­sired to mi­grate from T&T with his girl­friend.

Last night, Sharaz was found dead at Ar­joon­s­ingh Dri­ve, La Ro­main. He ap­par­ent­ly com­mit­ted sui­cide in the same car he stole.

The cou­ple has two sons to­geth­er, both in their 20s.

Ra­jbobin-Ageemoolar re­mains ward­ed in a sta­ble con­di­tion at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the tragedy start­ed at 10 am, when Ra­j­gob­in-Ageemoolar, 47, went to Gen­er­al Ac­ci­dent In­sur­ance at the Cross Cross­ing Shop­ping Cen­tre to do busi­ness.

Po­lice said her ex-hus­band fol­lowed her in­to the of­fice and asked to speak to her out­side. She re­fused, fol­low­ing which he fired two shots, hit­ting her in the chest.

He then fled out­side and pro­ceed­ed to en­ter a white Ti­i­da owned by Ken­ton Moses, which was parked out­side.

Ramd­han, who was re­lat­ed to Moses, was sit­ting in the back seat of the Ti­i­da and saw Sharaz as he came run­ning out of the of­fice. Po­lice said Moses was in­side the in­sur­ance of­fice and ran up to Sharaz and at­tempt­ed to grab him. How­ev­er, Sharaz opened fire, hit­ting Ramd­han in­stead.

Bleed­ing pro­fuse­ly, Ramd­han tried to es­cape and stum­bled up the street to avoid more bul­lets. He col­lapsed face down on the road about 50 feet away and sub­se­quent­ly died.

A work­er from the near­by NP Gas Sta­tion said four gun­shots rang out, two in­side and two out­side.

“I just duck. I went in a place where I know bul­lets will not fly,” the work­er said.

Still shak­en, he added: “No­body re­al­ly safe out here any­more.”

Po­lice were called in and found Ra­j­gob­in-Ageemoolar bleed­ing in­side an of­fice.

While the po­lice processed the scene, Ramd­han’s girl­friend ar­rived, vis­i­bly dis­traught.

“Dan­ny, oh gawd, Dan­ny, what they do Dan­ny,” she wept.

Two rel­a­tives tried to con­sole her, but she then tried to get to his body, her eyes rolling with agony as she saw him cov­ered up with a white sheet, sur­round­ed by homi­cide po­lice.
She was even­tu­al­ly lift­ed bod­i­ly and tak­en away.

Ramd­han’s fa­ther Ram­nar­ine Ramd­han ar­rived short­ly af­ter and spoke with the po­lice, hop­ing to get an­swers about his son’s death.

Ram­nar­ine told Guardian Me­dia his son was am­bi­tious and had plans to mi­grate from T&T with his girl­friend. How­ev­er, he said he was not suc­cess­ful in ob­tain­ing a visa. He de­scribed his son as qui­et and cool.

“Just last night he came by me and lime. He lived with his moth­er in Spring­vale. I live in Cou­va. Any­thing he asked for as long as I could af­ford I would give him,” the dis­traught fa­ther said.

Ram­nar­ine works at Massy En­er­gies and said his son of­ten helped him at work.

Po­lice said Sharaz lived in La Ro­main with his two sons while his ex-wife lived in Aripero. Po­lice be­lieve the shoot­ing was pre­med­i­tat­ed.

Of­fi­cers re­trieved two spent shells fired from a 9mm se­mi-au­to­mat­ic pis­tol and three pro­jec­tiles.
Supt Sean Dhilpaul, ASP Steve Per­sad, ASP Ram­dath Phillip, In­sp Roland Ram­lo­gan, In­sp Dirk John and oth­er of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau Re­gion­al Three are con­duct­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Cham­ber con­cerned about crime

Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent Ki­ran Singh says yes­ter­day’s in­ci­dent at the Cross Cross­ing Shop­ping Cen­tre high­lights the es­ca­lat­ing crime prob­lem.

“We can­not con­done the evil ac­tions of cer­tain peo­ple. The mur­der rate is so high. Is it that peo­ple have no re­spect for the law? No re­spect for el­ders or peo­ple go­ing about their busi­ness legal­ly? It is fright­en­ing that this could hap­pen in a busi­ness place where peo­ple go to do of­fi­cial busi­ness,” Singh said.

He added: “This is not the way to solve is­sues be­tween peo­ple if they have dis­putes.”

He ex­plained that when­ev­er crime in­creas­es, there is a de­crease in in­vestor con­fi­dence.

“High crime cre­ates fear and caus­es peo­ple to say ‘why get in­to busi­ness if you will be tar­get­ed and robbed’?”

As T&T ap­proach­es Car­ni­val, Singh said the Cham­ber looks for­ward to in­creased po­lice pa­trols in the city, as well as ad­di­tion­al ve­hi­cles for bet­ter pro­tec­tion of cit­i­zens.