(Trinidad Express) A Barrackpore contractor was shot dead at a friend’s house before daybreak on Tuesday morning.
Deonarine Mahase, the owner of DM Contractors Ltd, was killed near his vehicle parked on Wilson Road.
Mahase, of Sieunarine Trace, Khanhai Road South, was shot at close range, and when he fell, the gunman stood over him and fired more shots.
He was a father of three and a grandfather of five.
Crime scene investigators retrieved five spent nine-millimetre shell casings near the body.
Police were alerted around 5.30 a.m. about the shooting.
Officers of the Barrackpore Police Station responded and were told that Mahase was walking to his vehicle parked in a shed next to his friend’s house when a gunman approached him around 5 a.m. and opened fire.
Police said a woman walked out of the house and saw a man wearing a fisherman’s hat and a face mask and carrying a firearm standing over Mahase, who was on the ground.
The woman told police that the shooter told her “stay inside” and she ran back into the house.
The killer ran off.
Officers of the Barrackpore Police Station and detectives of the Homicide Bureau of Investigations of Region Three responded to the report.
The motive for the killing was robbery, the report said.
When the Express visited the house on Wilson Road where the shooting occurred, no one responded.
Another motive?
At Mahase’s family’s home at Sieunarine Trace, a relative who did not wish to be identified disagreed that the motive behind Mahase’s murder was robbery.
“It was not a robbery. His vehicle in which there was about $10,000, his wallet and everything were at the scene. It was a love affair gone bad. The family is in mourning and we are praying for justice and that the truth will be revealed,” said the relative.
W/Cpl Dyer-Baptiste of the Homicide Bureau of Investigations of Region Three is continuing the investigation.
The murder toll for 2024 so far stood at 591 last night compared to 554 for the same period last year.
