A 29-year-old man was fatally shot on Saturday at his residence in Better Hope, East Coast Demerara.
The victim has been identified as Denis Nandlall of 21 Lalchan Street, Better Hope South.
Dead: Denis Nandlall
A relative of the deceased, Alicia Douglas, told Guyana Times on Sunday that she, Nandlall and a few others were chatting in the yard of their family home when the incident happened.
“I heard him talking to someone on the road. I heard him saying ‘come back tomorrow, the guy is not at home’ and before you know it, things happened so fast,” she recalled.
Douglas then recalled hearing a loud explosion and soon after, she saw her cousin fall to the ground. Upon inquiring, relatives discovered that Nandlall had been shot in the back.
According to her, no one saw who fired the shot, but neighbours claimed that they saw two strange men on bicycles, wearing hoodies in the street around the same time that the incident happened.
Nandlall was rushed to the Woodlands Hospital for emergency medical treatment. “They said he had to get emergency surgery. They asked us to pay down the ward fee. When the doctor examined him, they told us to lodge down $550,000,” Douglas stated.
Since the family did not have that amount of cash on hand, they were presented with no choice but to transfer Nandlall to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation.
“By time that, he had major internal bleeding, which resulted in his death. The bullet was lodged in his back on the left side, which according to the doctors caused the internal bleeding,” she added.
While some are still finding it hard to believe that someone would just show up at Nandlall’s home and shoot him, others believe that something may have led to this unfortunate incident. Asked whether Nandlall ever interfered with anyone, Douglas doubted that her cousin would attempt to create trouble with anyone. She also claimed that he was never involved in any criminal activity. “He is a very good human being. I’ve never knew him to be a bad person or somebody that would do something wrong. He was a decent person. I know him well and he is a good person,” she stressed.
An aunt of the deceased, Joyce Nandlall, told this newspaper that she was very saddened and shocked by what transpired. She claimed that her nephew was a decent individual who was never a troublemaker.
“He don’t drink and smoke and fight and make trouble with anybody. I don’t know if people don’t like him. I can’t say. What I know is he is not a trouble-making person and he don’t fight with anybody.”
Joyce said the incident has brought to bear the question of how safe neighbourhoods were these days.
“It’s like we are not safe anymore. Just imagine this happened in our own home. Because the person just came and asked him for somebody, they shoot him. Life doesn’t have a value anymore?”
While some are speculating that it could have been an attempted robbery, others are of the opinion that Nandlall was specifically targeted and his murder was carefully planned and executed. The man was expected to get married later this year. The matter is currently being investigated by the Police. Nandlall will be laid to rest today.
