Rel­a­tives of mur­dered busi­ness­woman Bibi Za­mil­la Swamber are call­ing on the po­lice and those in au­thor­i­ty to step up crime-fight­ing ef­forts in the coun­try.

Swamber, 68, was killed at her home on the cor­ner of the South­ern Main Road and Dass Trace Ex­ten­sion, Cunu­pia, in what po­lice sus­pect was a home in­va­sion gone wrong.

Her body was found with the hands and feet tied with elec­tri­cal cords and a tow­el placed over her face, in the liv­ing room on Tues­day af­ter­noon.

The house was al­so ran­sacked.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, yes­ter­day, Swamber’s rel­a­tives said she owned and op­er­at­ed sev­er­al fam­i­ly busi­ness­es over the years, be­gin­ning with a par­lour, be­fore up­grad­ing to a su­per­mar­ket in Boodram Street, En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas. She lat­er be­came a land­la­dy with apart­ments for rent up to the time of her mur­der.

Rel­a­tives, who asked not to be named, said the su­per­mar­ket even­tu­al­ly closed due to sev­er­al rob­beries.

They said they of­ten warned Swamber about crime and how dan­ger­ous crim­i­nals had be­come but she had faith her neigh­bours would look out for her.

“We al­ways be­hind her to tell her about the dan­gers of crime, but you know be­ing old school, she was set in her ways and she al­ways used to say she felt safe in that neigh­bour­hood.

“She nev­er thought that some­thing like this would have hap­pened.”

One rel­a­tive said Swamber was al­so known for her gen­eros­i­ty and had a rep­u­ta­tion for of­fer­ing meals to her em­ploy­ees and neigh­bours.

An­oth­er rel­a­tive said he was par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­ap­point­ed in the fail­ure of the au­thor­i­ties to sub­due crime even as the State of Emer­gency (SoE) re­mains in ef­fect.

“It seems like no­body cares in this coun­try any­more and it reached home to us now.

“Al­most on a dai­ly ba­sis we read about this hap­pen­ing and we hoped it nev­er hit home, but yet it did and it’s just an­oth­er death and it’s be­come so ac­cept­ed in so­ci­ety that this is nor­mal.”

The rel­a­tives said the grief for them was two-fold as yes­ter­day was the an­niver­sary of Swamber’s hus­band’s death.

Of­fi­cers from the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Re­gion III are con­tin­u­ing en­quiries.