“Girl, when you poor and you can’t do this and you can’t do that, wa you gon do?” Kamini Ramnarine, whose pregnant 14-year-old daughter died in June after sustaining severe burns, questioned yesterday.
The woman and her reputed husband, Walter Mohammed, don’t feel police are doing enough to find Amrita Singh’s 16-year-old boyfriend who they allege set her ablaze on June 11. Singh succumbed to her wounds on June 25, at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH). She was burned at her Lusignan, East Coast Demerara home where she’d been living with her boyfriend. However, Ramnarine still does not believe her daughter was suicidal.
The young man disappeared days after her daughter was hospitalized, Ramnarine recalled. A welfare officer, the grieving mother said, had interviewed Singh, who had indicated to the officer that she suffered abuse at her boyfriend’s house.
“When she get admit to de hospital last month they had to report de matter to de police there,” Ramnarine recalled, “and he [Singh’s boyfriend] told dem that she was he sister. Anyway, after she [Singh] tell de welfare officer how they used to abuse and ill treat she de officer ask to see me and de very next day he disappear.”
The young man’s father and stepmother had been taken into police custody for questioning the day after the teen’s death but were released on June 24. Singh’s boyfriend is yet to be found but Mohammed said that several people have reported seeing the young man at various locations along the East Coast.
“Some people been seeing he around,” Mohammed said yesterday. “A man that know he good seh how he see he recently at Enterprise catching bus.”
Mohammed explained that although he was Singh’s stepfather he loved her like his own daughter. It is hurting them, he said, to know that the young man is walking freely and Singh is no longer here to enjoy her life.
Mirroring his reputed wife’s feelings, Mohammed said that they never treated their daughter’s boyfriend “like a son-in-law”. The young man, according to him, was always treated like a son and they spoke with and listened to him like they would their own children.
“We want de police to find he and question he but dem ain’t doing nothing,” Mohammed said. “So is wa dem leaving me to do? Na tek justice in meh own hand? And I sure if meh go and do he something de police going to find me quick.”
Police, Singh’s mother said, can try a little harder to find the young man. According to the woman, since her daughter’s post-mortem examination was conducted she had heard nothing from the officers who were dealing with the matter.
“Today [yesterday] make three Saturday now since she funeral,” Ramnarine noted. “I studying this thing…we have people who say dem see he set she on fire and it really look fishy how he go and disappear.”
The woman, unshed tears in her eyes, said that she only wanted the best for her daughter. She said she wanted to keep Singh happy and not hurt her like how she’d been hurt during her life.
Never felt loved
Ramnarine, 37, met her first reputed husband [Singh’s father] when she was 19. One year later she was pregnant with her first child; six years and three children later abuse forced her to leave him.
“I grow up with meh aunty,” Ramnarine said. “Meh mother tell me that when I was lil my aunty take me from she to mine meh but when I was 14 meh mother tek me back to help she in de house.”
Her father, she said, was a contractor in those days and her mother accompanied him to work daily. Ramnarine was the youngest of thirteen siblings and by the time she was 14, three had died and the others had already married and moved on with their lives.
“I used to cook and clean and do whatever had to be done in de house,” she said. “I got to school up to third form but when I go back to meh mother house I stop going.”
At age 18, Ramnarine recalled, she moved to her eldest sister’s home to work. She explained that she lived with her sister and brother-in-law and would help them with their work. It was while living with her sister in La Bonne Intention (LBI) that she met her first reputed husband.
“Is through meh sister I meet he and about a year after I marry he,” Ramnarine said.
Throughout her life, she explained, she’d never felt loved or wanted by anyone so the first chance she got to “get out” she willingly took. Shortly after though, Ramnarine said, she discovered that her new husband didn’t have a steady job, used alcohol excessively, demanded money when there wasn’t any, and hit her when she couldn’t provide what he asked for.
Ramnarine said she used to buy and sell vegetables and made rag mats, brooms and other items. When she was pregnant with Singh, her third child, she sold brooms and mats at the Bourda Market then bought vegetables and fruits to sell at the Mon Repos Market by night.
“I use to think me had to make it work with him, but one day I learn meh lesson,” Ramnarine recalled. “I come home from clinic one day with meh baby and meh first husband start cussing meh up and run meh with a knife.”
A friend, Ramnarine said, witnessed the incident and was aware of what she went through. It was that friend, according to her, who encouraged her to leave. After six years of “torment”, she took her four children and moved to a cousin’s house. It was after this that she met her present reputed husband, Mohammed, with whom she had four children.
“I meet meh present gentleman lil after then,” she said, “and he tek me and me four children and together we trying we best to be happy.”
‘…I try to keep dem happy’
It was the hardships she faced early in life, Ramnarine said, that makes her very careful with her children. She tries to give them the love which she didn’t get and does everything she can to keep them happy.
“I know what is torment and how it does feel when you think nobody don’t love you,” she said. “I don’t want meh children dem feeling that way so I try to keep dem happy.”
Ramnarine believes that if she had had parents who cared more for her then she wouldn’t be where she is today. The woman said she talks with her children and is very careful not to hurt them in anyway.
“I lef’ she fuh mek she happy because I know how dem young people stay now ah days,” the woman had told Stabroek News. “I de frighten that if I bring she home she woulda try fuh kill she self or run away again.”
Just before Easter, she’d said, 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.
The incident, Ramnarine said, occurred on Good Friday. Her daughter, she said, stayed with the aunt until Easter Monday before she left and went back to her boyfriend. Ramnarine said that the aunt had tried to keep her, but Singh insisted and left.
“Since then I saw her one time more before she end up in the hospital,” the woman said. “When she was in de hospital she always tell me that she love me and everybody. Mostly de love de coming out of her mouth.”
Singh, her mother said, never spoke of her relationship and never discussed how she was burnt. However, Singh did relate that she’d been repeatedly verbally abused by her boyfriend and his father.
After Singh eloped with the 16-year-old, Ramnarine had said, they had approached the young man’s mother who promised to take care of the teen. Ramnarine continues to insist that she only wanted her child to be happy.
“Look dem promise that if we let she stay with de boy dem going to take care of she,” Ramnarine said,” and look is a wa happen now. None a dem na come to de funeral and dem na even call or come and say nothing since.”
