Magistrate Priya Beharry on Monday remanded a pork-knocker who allegedly assaulted and burned his common-law wife with a lit cigarette after an argument.
Diaram Narine, 42, of Lot 5 “E” Lamaha Street, Queenstown had pleaded not guilty to the charge of unlawful assault. He denied that on August 12, at the Potaro River, he unlawfully assaulted Reallovelace Singh so as to cause her actual bodily harm.
In a bail application, his lawyer Sase Gunraj stated that the couple shared a common-law relationship for over 27 years. He said that his client had no previous convictions and that he posed no risk of flight. He also stated that his client is not likely to interfere with Singh since she did not live with him anymore.
But the prosecutor Munilall Seetaram stated that the defendant had always been in the habit of physically assaulting Singh. He stated that on the day in question the couple was at the Potaro River when Singh had asked Narine for a phone call on his cell phone.
An argument later ensued over that call which resulted in Narine dealing Singh “a slap, a cuff and a kick” about her body. He also stated that Narine had threatened to burn Singh and had even gone as far as illustrating this by burning her on her left side chest with a lit cigarette.
The prosecutor stated that he objected to the bail application on the grounds of the likelihood that Narine may continue to commit these sinister offences against Singh.
However, Gunraj stated that his client pork-knocks full time at the Upper Potaro mining region and that if the prosecution paid more attention to the place of the alleged offence, they would have seen that it had occurred at Narine’s workplace. “The interesting question to ask is what the VC (Singh) was doing there,” stated the lawyer.
He then noted that that matter will be ventilated at the appropriate time. The magistrate then ordered that Narine be remanded to prison and that the case be transferred to the Mahdia Magistrate’s Court for October 14.
