Taxi driver found shot dead

Roopnarine’s body was found on a river bank in Cunupia on Friday evening. Investigators believe he was hijacked by people pretending to be passengers and shot dead. Spent shells were found near to the body.

Police say Roopnarine left his home at Calcutta No 1 at about 1 am. The taxi driver was expected to end working on the route by 5.30 am, when he would return home to take his wife to sell pies.

But he never did and calls to his cell phone were directed to voice mail. A missing person’s report was made at the Freeport Police Station and officers and relatives began searching for Roopnarine.

His body was discovered 5.30 pm on a river bank at Ramlal Trace, Cunjal Road, Cunupia.

Roopnarine was a taxi driver for 20 years. His wife Nandrani, 47, yesterday said he had been robbed at gunpoint before.

“Being a taxi driver is a very risky job and every day my husband leaves the house for work I pray for him,” she said. “He is the breadwinner of our family and the money he makes from working taxi is our main source of income.” The couple have a daughter, Chelsea, five, and son, Vijay, 20.

Nandrani said she had pleaded Roopnarine to stop being a taxi driver.

“Every time he was robbed by bandits he would come home and tell me. I would say, ‘Babe I am afraid, I don’t want you to go back on the road.’ But my husband was a fearless and brave man and wanted to provide for his family.” Nandrani said she feels as if she is in a nightmare from which she would soon wake up.

“I thought somehow, they would have found him alive and not dead. They could have just taken his car and money and just leave him alive, but they killed an innocent man for what, just a few hundred dollars and a car.” Nandrani said her said her husband would pick her up by 5.30 am to take her around to businesses to sell pastries.

“I think that someone may have hired my husband to carry them somewhere which he is accustomed too and they robbed him and killed him. It is really scary how this country is becoming, no one is safe anymore.” She described her husband as hard working, ambitious and loving. Nandrani said their children are having great difficulty coping.

“Their father was their everything.

He was always on the road working taxi from Sunday to Sunday, but he made time to spend with his children.” Up to late yesterday, police continued the search for the taxi driver’s gold Nissan Almera car.

An autopsy is expected to be performed at the Forensic Science Centre, St James tomorrow.

Roopnarine’s murder, the 255th to date, is being investigated by Homicide Region Three officers.