A shocking, senseless act of violence has cut short the life of a young Trinidadian farmer just months after he and his brother launched their new agricultural venture. On Tuesday, 34-year-old Kamal Richard Mohammed, a father of two young children, was ambushed and shot in the head while working on a cultivated plot off Manohar Trace, Rochard Road in Barrackpore, local law enforcement and eyewitnesses confirm.
According to official police accounts, the attack unfolded around midday. The unidentified gunman, riding a bicycle, approached Mohammed on the agricultural land, drew a concealed firearm, fired a single shot at the farmer, and immediately fled west along an unpaved dirt track. First responders were alerted swiftly, and Mohammed was carried to a waiting vehicle by his relatives and colleagues for emergency transport. Along Papourie Road, the Emergency Health Services ambulance took over the patient transfer and rushed him to San Fernando General Hospital. Despite rapid medical intervention, Mohammed was pronounced dead at approximately 1:20 p.m.
By Tuesday afternoon, investigators had located a key piece of evidence: a red and black mountain bike matching the gunman’s description was abandoned at the side of the road near Manohar Trace, confirming details from eyewitness accounts.
Mukesh Mahase, a long-time employee of the Mohammed family who was present at the farm alongside Kamal and his brother Rasheed during the attack, shared his harrowing recollection of the incident with reporters. Mahase said he had been kneeling and tending to pumpkin crops when he heard three gunshots ring out across the farm. Lifting his head, he spotted the masked attacker on the trail. “I said, ‘Who is you?’ The man start to ride that bike real speed,” Mahase recalled. He described the gunman as wearing a long-sleeved garment with his full face covered, riding a mountain bike matching the model police later recovered.
After the shooter fled, Mahase said Rasheed came running from the area of the farm’s pond, shouting that Kamal had been shot near the water pump. “It was blood like that. I raised his head and put it on his brother’s knee. The next brother run with a towel and they start to make calls,” Mahase said, emphasizing that the family has never been involved in conflict with anyone in the community. “We don’t trouble nobody, we don’t have nothing with nobody in the trace. Them is good soldiers. I know him as a little brother in front of me. They killed an innocent man.”
At the Mohammed family home on Wednesday, grief hung heavy over the entire household as Kamal’s elderly parents mourned their slain son. Seventy-three-year-old Sackeer Mohammed and 63-year-old Leela Mohammed told reporters their son had never mentioned receiving threats before the attack, and there had never been any prior violent incidents targeting him or his brothers.
Leela explained that the farming venture was new for her sons: just last year, an elderly local man who had long managed the parcel of land hired Kamal and his brother to clear, prepare, and cultivate the plots. The brothers had spent months working tirelessly to get the farm ready, only planting their first full crops earlier this year.
“He did not deserve that (death). He did not trouble anybody. He would go to work and he loved to exercise and eat healthy,” Leela said, her voice breaking as she spoke of Kamal’s two young children, aged four and six. “His children have been asking for him, and we do not know how to tell his children that he died.”
As of Wednesday, detectives from the Region Three Homicide Bureau of Investigations have not identified any confirmed motive for the killing, and the investigation remains ongoing.