Relatives of Ramraj Ramnarine are searching for answers after the father of two was shot and killed on Sunday by a trap gun set-up to keep cattle out of agricultural lands in Barrackpore. Yesterday, Ramnarine’s father Sonny, 90, was still in a state of shock over his son’s death when a news team from the T&T Guardian visited his home at Khanhai Road, Rochard Douglas Road, Barrackpore. The elderly man said he still has questions about the circumstances surrounding his son’s death. He said Ramnarine would have turned 45 tomorrow. “He wife say he get shot in his back in the forest. He wife say he went to help tie animal and a pipe gun shot him. My question is how a pipe gun could shot him in the back? If a pipe gun shot him he would get shot in the foot or the side,” Sonny said pointing to his leg and side.
Police said around 6 pm Ramnarine, a labourer, was in the company of his friend Terry Singh, 32, also of Rochard Douglas Road, Barrackpore. Singh, police said, was tending to his cattle at a forested area at South Oropouche Road, Barrackpore, when he heard a loud explosion and saw Ramnarine slumped to the ground. Singh ran off and made a report to the Barrackpore Police Station. ASP Jaffar and homicide officers visited the scene on Sunday, but no weapon was found. The police returned to the area yesterday with Singh and found a trap gun, a spent shell and one live round. Police said they had received several reports from residents complaining against Singh. They complained he continuously tied his cattle in other people’s land.
Officers believe the trap gun was set-up to kill Singh’s animals when they came to graze in the land.
Sonny said he could not understand why a trap gun was set up in the area where his son was killed. “It have no hunting season. It have some people who still hunting,” he claimed. When the news team went to Singh’s home yesterday his relatives said he had returned to the scene of the shooting with the police. Ramnarine’s common-law wife, Mindy, was not at home. Relatives said she went to the funeral home to make arrangements and was not in a condition to speak. Sonny said his son spent eight years in the United States and returned to T&T four years ago. He said Ramnarine has a child in the US and a son with Mindy. The elderly man said when he heard the news on Sunday night that his son had been killed he could not stop himself from shaking. “I start to tremble when they tell me my son dead. I get frighten. It come like a shock to me. Friday he was here with me, he was normal,” Sonny said. He said his son spent Good Friday liming with his siblings at his (Sonny’s) home and everything was “normal.” Ramnarine, he said, was “a good fella, he was a hard worker and he take care of his family.” An autopsy is expected to be performed on Ramnarine’s body at the Forensic Science Centre. Acting Sgt Richardson is continuing investigations.