(Trinidad Express) “He was not a bad person, he never had any kind of enemies, and a lot of people looked up to him and loved him.”
This is how Saleem Gopaul, the son of murdered 59-year-old Shastri Gopaul, remembered his father yesterday.
The elder Gopaul was shot and killed at a quarry site in Santa Cruz on Tuesday afternoon.
The Express spoke with Gopaul’s son and relatives at the Forensic Science Centre, Federation Park, yesterday, where his body was taken. The post-mortem is expected to be performed later this week.
“He worked at Seereeram Bros Ltd for 40 years,” Saleem Gopaul said about his father.
“Cricket was his passion. Supporting his family was his passion. Trying to give me and my sister a good life was his passion,” he added.
He lamented that he was unable to say goodbye to his father.
“I mean, everybody has to die at some point, but I would have rather that he lie down in hospital and he goes like that. At least I would have gotten the chance to say goodbye to my father,” he said. “I did not get that chance as I was at work when it happened.”
He said that after he was told of the murder of his father by a stranger, he went to the murder scene himself, but was not allowed to view the body.
“He was a good, good man and I have no idea why this happened,” he said.
“Was he threatened?” asked the Express.
“I have no idea why this happened,” he said. “The company would send him to all kinds of areas and that’s where he would go, but I don’t know the type of people that they would have in those areas. I am feeling horrible. My father is dead and I am trying to hold it together for my family,” Saleem Gopaul said. “Of course, my mother will take it on the most.”
Police said that around 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday, Gopaul, an employee of contracting company Seereeram Bros Ltd, left the Stollmeyer Quarry on Cangrehal Road and was driving one of the company’s vans on Cangrehal Road.
Police said as he approached a guard booth near the exit, a white Nissan Tiida motor car that had been parked on the road for a short while drove in front of the van Gopaul was driving, blocking it.
Two men with guns got out and opened fire on Gopaul as he sat in the vehicle. They then got back into the car, which sped off.
People who heard the gunshots arrived to find Gopaul’s body slumped behind the steering wheel.
