– boyfriend missing
A 14-year-old, who succumbed to burn injuries at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) on Monday, had reportedly set herself ablaze two Fridays ago after an argument with her boyfriend.
However, Amrita Singh’s mother does not believe she was suicidal and alleges that her boyfriend, with whom she lived, had set her ablaze. The 16-year-old boy is in hiding and has not been apprehended by police.
Singh, called “Bako”, left her parents’ home several months ago to live with her 16-year-old boyfriend. At the time of the incident, Singh and the boy were living in the bottom flat of his father’s Lusignan home.
When Stabroek News visited the Lusignan home on Wednesday afternoon a close relative said that the boy’s father and stepmother were taken into police custody on Monday and had not been released. Since, Singh’s death on Monday, the relative said, they had not seen her boyfriend.
“I don’t know why he don’t come and show he self to de police,” the relative said, “he ain’t got nothing to frighten… He can’t got he father and de woman in de lock up.”
Meanwhile, the boy’s sister, who said she was at home at the time of the incident, told Stabroek News that she had returned home on June 12 and found her brother standing by the gate with tears in his eyes. Singh, she said, was in their lower flat apartment and was soaked in kerosene.
“I lef’ home de morning,” she recalled, “and when I come back de afternoon I see he by de gate crying so me ask he ‘Wa wrong?’ and den I go inside dey place and she been throwing away things in de house and she skin de full ah kero… she seh she going to kill she self.”
The boy’s sister said she told Singh not to do anything to herself and went outside and told her brother to put water in the bathroom so the teen could bathe. She then left the couple and went to her upstairs apartment but was alerted some minutes later by a scream.
“I rush to de step and when I look down I see she in de drum and I see a set of fire on she,” she said. “I ain’t see is how de fire start but when I reach down stairs I hear she [Singh] seh ‘Ayo see meh bun mehself’. She de pregnant to.”
Neighbours, the boy’s sister explained, rendered assistance and Singh was placed in a taxi and rushed to GPH. She was admitted to the hospital’s Burn Care Unit where, after 11 days of fighting for her life, she succumbed to her injuries on Monday afternoon.
Efforts to speak to Singh’s immediate neighbours in Lusignan were met with refusals to comment. However, one resident admitted rendering assistance that Friday afternoon to ensure that Singh was taken immediately for medical attention.
“We don’t want to say anything,” the resident said. “We did give them a $1,000 that day so that they could get a taxi to take her [Singh] to the hospital.”
Asked whether Singh and her boyfriend argued a lot or if she was physically abused by him both relatives refused to answer.
Kamini Ramnarine, the girl’s mother, said that other residents related a different version to her. According to the woman, immediate neighbours reported hearing Singh scream repeatedly on June 12, but dismissed it thinking that her boyfriend was “beating she again”.
“De neighbours dem tell me that when dem rush outside dem see she next to a barrel in de yard and dey see de boy throwing water over she,” Ramnarine said. “Dem tell me that when dem go near she [Singh] she tell dem fuh pray fuh she.”
‘I lef’ she fuh mek she happy…’
Singh left her parents’ Coldingen, East Coast Demerara house on September 8 last year to live with her boyfriend. Ramnarine said she went home that day in September and discovered her daughter gone.
“I does do lil domestic work and she father does work in Suriname and Bartica and so,” a distressed Ramnarine explained. “I lef’ she home that day and when I reach home she de gone…I de confused and I didn’t know wa fuh do cause she is only one of meh eight children.”
The day after her daughter’s disappearance, Ramnarine said, she was contacted by the teen who told her she was at Garden of Eden, East Bank Demerara. The young man’s mother and stepfather live there.
“Me, meh bhowjie [older sister-in-law] and meh neighbour go to Garden of Eden and talk to de boy mother,” Ramnarine remembered. “She tell me how she going to tek care of meh daughter.” Regret on her face, Ramnarine admitted that she chose to leave her daughter with the boy and his mother. Ramnarine explained that she didn’t want to take her home because she was afraid Singh might try to do something “drastic”.
“I lef’ she fuh mek she happy because I know how dem young people stay now ah days,” the woman said. “I de frighten that if I bring she home she woulda try fuh kill she self or run away again.”
Singh’s boyfriend, her mother said, lived a few houses away from them last year and that is how the couple met. Ramnarine said she was never aware that her daughter was involved with the boy until she came home one day and discovered her missing.
‘Belna’ beating
After her daughter began living with the 16-year-old, Ramnarine said, she seldom heard from her. Whenever Singh called she would always tell her mother everything was fine but Ramnarine said she never believed her. Singh and her boyfriend, according to her, moved from house to house. They had been living at the Lusignan location for approximately two months when the incident occurred, Ramnarine said.
Just before Easter, she reported, Singh’s boyfriend had beaten her with a belna (rolling pin). Ramnarine said that her oldest daughter collected Singh and took her to an aunt’s house in Cove and John but the teen left with her boyfriend again shortly after.
“Meh daughter never seh that he does beat she but I know she de lying; she didn’t want tell me de truth,” Ramnarine stated.
Singh attended the Cove and John Primary School and after writing the Secondary School Entrance Examination she stayed on at the institution to attend first form. However, Ramnarine said that she was forced to transfer her daughter to the Enterprise school because she could not longer afford transportation costs.
Ramnarine, 37, said Singh was the second of her eight children. Her youngest child is three years old.
“Meh hurt right now and meh frighten for meh other children,” Ramnarine said.
