Wails em­anat­ed from the Church Street, La Ro­man home of mur­dered dri­ver Saleem Ab­dool as pall­bear­ers car­ried his white cas­ket up the steps on Thurs­day evening.

Ab­dool, a dri­ver, had been killed in what po­lice be­lieve was a botched as­sas­si­na­tion at­tempt on his em­ploy­er on Tues­day.

Po­lice sources said they are close to crack­ing the case.

Ear­li­er on Thurs­day, af­ter an au­top­sy was com­plet­ed at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in Port-of-Spain, Ab­dool’s body was es­cort­ed un­der po­lice watch to a fu­ner­al home in Ch­agua­nas, then to his home in La Ro­main. From there, it was tak­en to the La Ro­main Mosque, where fi­nal rites were held be­fore bur­ial at the La Ro­main Ceme­tery. The fam­i­ly, still grap­pling with the shock of the killing, asked that the me­dia re­spect their pri­va­cy and did not per­mit jour­nal­ists to at­tend the fu­ner­al.

Sev­er­al rel­a­tives sobbed open­ly, some cling­ing to each oth­er for sup­port, while young men stood solemn­ly near the gate, their ex­pres­sions fixed and un­read­able. Po­lice of­fi­cers min­gled qui­et­ly with the crowd, keep­ing watch.

Ab­dool was killed on Tues­day while dri­ving a ve­hi­cle be­long­ing to Shane Ma­haraj, the di­rec­tor of SNM Mo­tors Ltd.

Po­lice said the in­ci­dent oc­curred around 1.20 pm. As Ab­dool wait­ed in traf­fic near VM­COTT, a brown Kia Sportage ve­hi­cle pulled along­side and opened fire. He was struck in the chest and tak­en to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, but died dur­ing emer­gency surgery.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said Ab­dool was not the in­tend­ed tar­get. Their fo­cus re­mains on his em­ploy­er, Ma­haraj, whose fam­i­ly has been linked to a se­ries of vi­o­lent in­ci­dents.

Just two weeks be­fore Ab­dool’s killing, gun­men at­tempt­ed to am­bush Ma­haraj’s sis­ter, Lisa, as she drove her white Range Rover on the South Trunk Road, near Achie­vor’s Hall. In an­oth­er shoot­ing on May 23, gun­men at­tacked the ve­hi­cle of a man linked to the fam­i­ly through a re­la­tion­ship.

Ma­haraj is the son of Ra­bindranath Ma­haraj, own­er of R&J Cell Tech.

The mo­tive be­hind the string of at­tacks re­mains un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Wayne Mys­tar said on Wednes­day that in­ves­ti­ga­tors are work­ing on the as­sump­tion that the in­ci­dents are con­nect­ed. He said cred­i­ble in­tel­li­gence has been gath­ered, and of­fi­cers are in­ter­view­ing wit­ness­es. 

He as­sured that ef­forts are un­der­way to track down those re­spon­si­ble.