Trinidad: Law clerk shot dead during bar robbery

(Trinidad Guardian) A night of cel­e­bra­tion spurned in­to life­time of tragedy for a Gas­par­il­lo fam­i­ly af­ter ban­dits shot dead a po­lice of­fi­cer’s broth­er and wound­ed his friend af­ter a rob­bery at a vil­lage bar.

“It is a birth­day that I will re­mem­ber for the rest of my life,” Ramesh Sir­jus­ingh lament­ed as he re­called the sound of four gun­shots that end­ed the life of his youngest son, Kris­t­ian, on Mon­day night.

Sir­jus­ingh, who was al­so at the bar hav­ing a drink to cel­e­brate his 66th birth­day, man­aged to es­cape the mur­der­ous gun­men who struck at Michelle’s Bar and Lounge along Bonne Aven­ture Road, Gas­par­il­lo to car­ry out a rob­bery.

As three ban­dits were walk­ing out of the bar with their loot the be­gan fir­ing in­dis­crim­i­nate­ly. Kris­t­ian, 28, a law clerk at Richard Sir­joo & Co, was shot dead in­stant­ly and his friend Rishi Ram­char­i­tar, 28, screamed from a gun­shot wound to his arm. 

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, the men were among a group of vil­lagers lim­ing at the bar when around 8.30 pm, three men ap­proached the bar­tender, a 23-year-old woman of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.

It was close to clos­ing time and one of the ban­dits asked about the gam­ing ma­chines, but was told that he would not be able to use it as the bar was about to close.

The gun­man then whipped out a gun and an­nounced a rob­bery.

One of his ac­com­plices or­dered Kris­t­ian, Ram­char­i­tar and oth­ers in­side the bar. Kris­t­ian was robbed of his wal­let con­tain­ing a sum of cash while Ram­char­i­tar was robbed of cash and his mo­bile phone. While leav­ing the bar that the gun­man fired shots wild­ly at the men, hit­ting the vic­tims on their up­per body.

Speak­ing at his Hap­py Hill home yes­ter­day, lo­cat­ed a short dis­tance from the bar, Sir­jus­ingh said he went across to the bar and was gift­ed a bot­tle of rum and $20 to play Play Whe.

With his win­nings, he bought beers for Kris­t­ian and Ram­char­i­tar and went to sit with a friend. He said that when the ban­dits or­dered them in­to the bar, he saw a chance to run and grabbed his friend’s arm and ran home.

“When they (gun­men) went in the bar, they didn’t even stay half of a minute and when they walked back out, they walked with guns. They or­dered my son and friend in the bar, and al­so us. While they con­cen­trat­ed on my son and his friend, I grabbed the Chi­nese woman’s hand and ran home with her. Next thing you know, I heard Bow! Bow! Bow! Bow! Four shots. I could not go back be­cause bul­lets were pass­ing,” Sir­jus­ingh said.

About five min­utes lat­er when the po­lice ar­rived, Sir­jus­ingh went back to the bar, on­ly to see Kris­t­ian dead, sprawled on his back.

“That’s about it, I lost a good child.”

Kris­t­ian, the broth­er of a po­lice of­fi­cer at­tached to the South­ern Di­vi­sion, worked with Ch­agua­nas-based at­tor­ney Richard Sir­joo and was the fa­ther to a sev­en-year-old boy.

On his Face­book page yes­ter­day, Sir­joo said that he was shocked and in dis­be­lief.

The bar re­mained closed yes­ter­day as, like sev­er­al oth­er busi­ness­es, the scourge of crime had left the own­ers in fear.