An­na-Lisa Paul

The mur­der of Ch­agua­nas taxi dri­ver Mi­tra Bho­la on Sun­day has left his wife and chil­dren ter­ri­fied to ven­ture out of their house, as they con­tin­ue to ques­tion the mo­tive be­hind the sense­less killing.

Shiv­er­ing every time a car horn sounds now, a fe­male rel­a­tive yes­ter­day said, “Now, I am so afraid to come out my house. If some­body come by the gate, I am ter­ri­fied to even watch by the gate be­cause you don’t know.”

Bho­la, 49, of Ibis Cir­cu­lar, New Set­tle­ment, Ch­agua­nas, was killed around 1.25 pm as he stood in his front yard.

He had just come out of the house and was walk­ing to­wards a car that had stopped in front of his gate when a gun­man opened fire on him.

Bho­la was shot in the head and chest and died at the scene.

Bho­la, his wife and two chil­dren, aged 16 and 22, were in­side when they heard a car stop and the dri­ver popped the horn sev­er­al times. Leav­ing them in­side, he walked out­side to check who had ar­rived and was in­stead gunned down.

Speak­ing with re­porters at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, yes­ter­day, one rel­a­tive, who did not wish to be iden­ti­fied, said, “He was a fun­ny per­son. He was friend­ly, al­ways help­ing peo­ple.”

Un­aware if Bho­la had been re­ceiv­ing any threats, the woman said the fam­i­ly had felt safe liv­ing in the area, as it was where he had been born and spent his en­tire life. “From what we know, he had no en­e­mies,” she claimed.

Com­ment­ing on the crime sit­u­a­tion, she said, “We are ter­ri­fied about it. No­body is do­ing noth­ing about it, you un­der­stand... and there is too much of this hap­pen­ing.”

Point­ing to Fri­day’s in­ci­dent at Sun Plaza, Munroe Road, where a man was gunned down around 4.30 pm out­side the Star­bucks out­let, Bho­la’s rel­a­tive added, “We are liv­ing in an evil world right now.”

Asked how she felt about the high mur­der rate, the up­set woman an­swered, “I think it is ridicu­lous.”

The rel­a­tive cried as she spoke of Bho­la’s shat­tered dreams to en­sure his chil­dren com­plet­ed their ed­u­ca­tion and im­proved their lives.

“He was a fam­i­ly per­son. His fam­i­ly was very im­por­tant to him. His fam­i­ly was his pride and joy,” she lament­ed.

Foren­sic of­fi­cials re­cov­ered five spent 9 mm shell cas­ings at the scene of Bho­la’s shoot­ing.