Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter 

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

A fa­ther and son were shot and two homes were set on fire dur­ing an at­tack in Tarou­ba ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing. The Bha­gawat fam­i­ly, in­clud­ing a six-year-old boy, were asleep in their home short­ly be­fore 4 am when they awoke to smoke and re­alised fire was rag­ing un­der their home.   

Ricky Bha­gawat, 57, and his son Rishi, 24, ran down­stairs to ex­tin­guish the blaze. How­ev­er, they were con­front­ed by a gun­man who shot them. Ricky was shot twice, once in his stom­ach and arm while his son was shot in his leg.

Re­call­ing the or­deal, Richard said some­one had set fire to old tyres and oth­er items un­der the house.

His two cousins, ages 20 and 22, safe­ly ex­it­ed the house. But he said his moth­er and six-year-old nephew were afraid to leave through the front door as the fire was rag­ing near­by. 

They had al­so heard gun­shots and were scared. But he man­aged to help his moth­er and nephew es­cape.

Richard said he saw his fa­ther bleed­ing, but he did not see his broth­er. “I thought my broth­er dead be­cause when I walk on the side I didn’t see him. I was fright­ened to go in the back there be­cause I hear­ing shots. I see him (broth­er) and tell him to drag and come by the fridge and when he come I take him up and drag him.”

Bha­gawat said his cousin’s house which was on the same com­pound, and a room where his fa­ther stored his brush cut­ter and oth­er items, were al­so set on fire. He said had his cousin Stephen Seep­er­sad been at home he would have per­ished.    

He said the at­tack left him shocked and con­fused.

“If you ask any­body is Tarou­ba about we, we don’t re­al­ly be med­dling around with peo­ple. We good. Every­body know we good but we don’t know who will do this to we.”

While he was grate­ful for life, he called for pro­tec­tion for him­self and his fam­i­ly.

“I don’t know if they will come back and kill we. We have to be fright­ened how we liv­ing here be­cause we are not sure.”

Richard said his broth­er and fa­ther were be­ing treat­ed at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal but their in­juries were not life-threat­en­ing. In­ves­ti­ga­tors were still work­ing on a mo­tive.

Any­one will­ing to help the fam­i­ly can call 309-1292.