SASCHA WIL­SON

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Three weeks af­ter a fam­i­ly was at­tacked in their home at Friend­ship Vil­lage in Ste Madeleine by gun­men, leav­ing a moth­er and son dead and two oth­ers in­jured, their neigh­bour suf­fered a sim­i­lar fate, which left him in crit­i­cal con­di­tion.

Po­lice said the 33-year-old labour­er, who lived two hous­es from where the mur­ders oc­curred, was shot and in­jured in front of his home at Pe­ter­loo Street on Sun­day.

Of­fi­cers said around 11.30 pm, he was stand­ing in front of his home when a man came out of a white Nis­san Ti­i­da and fired sev­er­al shots at him, strik­ing him on his hand and ab­domen.

The vic­tim’s fa­ther ran to his as­sis­tance and struck the sus­pect on his head with a stool.

The gun­men then ran back to the ve­hi­cle, which sped off.

Rel­a­tives took the 33-year-old to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, where he is in a crit­i­cal but sta­ble con­di­tion. Po­lice re­cov­ered two spent shells and one live round of 9mm am­mu­ni­tion. Po­lice did not dis­close whether or not the shoot­ing was linked to the Oc­to­ber 10 at­tack on his neigh­bours.

In that in­ci­dent, Grace­lyn Ram­ber­an, her hus­band Vi­jai Ram­per­sad, 58, their son Randy Ram­per­sad, 25, and daugh­ter-in-law Kim­ber­ly Sookoo-Ram­per­sad were at­tacked by gun­men in their home around 2 am.

Ram­ber­an, 48, was shot in the head and died on the spot. Her hus­band grabbed a cut­lass and chased one of the ban­dits, but he, too, was shot in the head. Their son, Randy, and his wife, Sookoo-Ram­per­sad, ran out­side but were both shot. Randy died af­ter col­laps­ing along the road­way. Sookoo-Ram­per­sad and Vi­jai Ram­per­sad were treat­ed at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal and have since been dis­charged. Both po­lice and rel­a­tives be­lieve Randy, 25, was the in­tend­ed tar­get.

Fur­ther in­quiries by the po­lice re­vealed that Randy may have sold il­le­gal drugs, and pri­or to the shoot­ing, had an ar­gu­ment with peo­ple about the il­lic­it items. Weeks be­fore, on Sep­tem­ber 20, the body of 12-year-old Mari­ah Seenath was found near the Friend­ship Vil­lage Recre­ation Ground in a bushy area off a track. An au­top­sy re­vealed she died from blunt force trau­ma in­juries. As of last evening, no one has been ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with these crimes. Ste Madeleine po­lice and of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau Re­gion III are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.