Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Amidst the grief and pain of los­ing their loved one, Fr Paul Bousi­gnac is call­ing on the rel­a­tives of Shari­da Ali to re­mem­ber their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in im­prov­ing so­ci­ety in the face of wors­en­ing crime and vi­o­lence.

Bousi­gnac made the re­marks dur­ing his homi­ly at Ali’s fu­ner­al at the St Joseph RC Church yes­ter­day.

Ali, 36, was shot and killed by a stray bul­let in the kitchen of a friend’s Beetham Gar­dens home, on Jan­u­ary 18, as car thieves and po­lice of­fi­cers en­gaged in a shootout near­by.

He not­ed that while many peo­ple were un­hap­py over the cur­rent state of crime in T&T, the pub­lic had a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to do its part in im­prov­ing the na­tion’s sit­u­a­tion.

Re­fer­ring to his own ex­pe­ri­ence work­ing as a trav­el­ling of­fi­cer with the Ser­vol (Ser­vice Vol­un­teered for All) pro­gramme years ago, Bousi­gnac said he in­ter­act­ed with chil­dren from the Beetham and oth­er so­cial­ly de­pressed com­mu­ni­ties who have grown to be­come suc­cess­ful, pro­duc­tive cit­i­zens with the prop­er guid­ance.

He, how­ev­er, lament­ed that some as­pects of so­ci­ety ap­peared to be on the de­cline.

“I would want to ask the com­mu­ni­ty to which you be­long to lend a help­ing hand, the com­mu­ni­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go ... we are a peo­ple who seem to be get­ting worse and worse.

“And what are we go­ing to be leav­ing to the lit­tle ones be­hind, to the young ones?

“We have to look at what is hap­pen­ing. What are the seeds that are be­ing plant­ed? What­ev­er seeds that we plant, they will grow.”

Bousi­gnac said while it was rea­son­able for peo­ple to think that they should not have to solve prob­lems in so­ci­ety they did not cre­ate, he felt the col­lec­tive bond be­tween hu­man be­ings with­in com­mu­ni­ties should at least prompt some uni­fied sense of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in im­prov­ing their shared qual­i­ty of life.

He added that sim­ply ad­just­ing the way par­ents speak to chil­dren could make a big dif­fer­ence in the mind­sets and at­ti­tudes of their chil­dren.

“Don’t tell them they are a son of a what­ev­er, they are a son of peo­ple. All of us are peo­ple, hu­man be­ings.”

Ali’s cousin, Jay­nia Ali de­liv­ered the eu­lo­gy where she re­called her favourite pas­times of cook­ing and lim­ing with friends, but main­tained that she pri­ori­tised the well-be­ing of her fam­i­ly.

De­scrib­ing her cousin as a “hard-work­ing and in­de­pen­dent” woman, Ali said she would re­mem­ber her for her tal­ent as a styl­ist and her en­er­gy.

“She al­ways en­sured her needs were straight be­fore her wants.

“She was a per­son you can call at any day or any­time for any­thing.”

At the be­gin­ning of the cer­e­mo­ny, Ali’s cousin Va­lene Ali had to be con­soled and phys­i­cal­ly sup­port­ed by rel­a­tives as she saw the body.

Sev­er­al of Ali’s co-work­ers from Star Cor­po­rate Se­cu­ri­ty Ltd, al­so at­tend­ed the fu­ner­al to pay their fi­nal re­spects.

She was laid to rest at the Tu­na­puna Pub­lic Ceme­tery.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia af­ter the fu­ner­al, one rel­a­tive claimed the fam­i­ly has not re­ceived any up­dates from the po­lice or the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) on the sta­tus of the two in­ves­ti­ga­tions, but not­ed that of­fi­cers from the Po­lice Vic­tim and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit have been in con­tact to en­quire about the well-be­ing of Ali’s daugh­ters.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions via What­sApp yes­ter­day, a spokesper­son for the PCA said that its in­ves­ti­ga­tion was on­go­ing with of­fi­cials vis­it­ing the scene and in­ter­view­ing peo­ple who had in­for­ma­tion.