Two in custody

Two persons were taken into custody yesterday as investigations into last Friday’s death of a West Coast Berbice taxi service owner took a different turn following a post-mortem examination (PME).

Initial reports were that Doulatram ‘Dara’ Singh, 35, of Experiment, Bath who owned the Timeless Taxi Service, had shot himself in his head around 2.30 pm while drinking with a friend at the Lai Li Jiu Jia Chinese Restaurant.

However, the results of the PME, conducted by Dr Vivakanand Brijmohan, proved that the injuries were not consistent with being self-inflicted, a source told this newspaper. As a result, the friend, who is an ex-policeman and a waitress were arrested yesterday.

Police said in a release that the cause of death was “laceration to the brain and fracture to the skull due to gunshot injury.”

Singh’s employee, Neeta Persaud had told this newspaper that when she got to the scene she enquired what had happened and a waitress at the restaurant had told her that her employer had been playing with a gun when he accidentally pulled the trigger. However, his wife, Christine, had said that her husband did not own a gun.

Reports are that the friend had left Singh, a father of four, and gone go to the washroom and while there he reportedly heard an explosion. He had claimed that upon checking he realized that the man had shot himself.

The man’s wife, Christine Singh, who was inconsolable, told this newspaper that she and her husband had no problems and had questioned why he would want to kill himself.