Fifty-year-old Lachman ‘Indar’ Balkarran left his Quakers Hall, Mahaicony home on August 23 to attend a wedding at De Hoop, Mahaica but suffered severe blows to his head which resulted in his death a few days later.
Results from a post-mortem examination revealed that the man died from haemorrhage and a fractured skull and listed the death as homicide.
His relatives are hoping that his killer(s) would be brought to justice.
A few days ago a relative received a call from an anonymous caller who provided the name and address of a man who was reportedly involved in a fight with Balkarran. The man has since been arrested and is being questioned by police. A few other persons who were initially arrested have been released.
His widow, Sherry Surujpaul, recalled that around 8 pm on August 23, a “friend” who had taken him to the wedding with his bus at 10 am came and asked if he had returned home. After she said no the man went back to the wedding house and brought him.
Although he was not talking and could not walk on his own she did not realize he was injured. The friend had told her that her husband had drunk excessively and was “too drunk to catch himself.”
Balkarran was only taken to the Mahaicony Hospital the following evening after his wife was faced with the harsh reality that her husband could not be “drunk” for so long. She said he still could not talk and was falling whenever he tried to walk on his own.
At the hospital, x-rays proved that his skull was fractured and that his brain was inflamed. He was immediately transferred to the Georgetown Public Hospital in an ambulance and was admitted to the intensive care unit after receiving emergency treatment. The following day a CT-scan was done and the doctor informed his wife that he was bleeding internally in the head. He also told her that it was not possible for surgery to be performed. The woman was nevertheless clinging to hope that her husband would make it and when he started to respond three days later she was overjoyed. “He didn’t eat since this happen and the Thursday the nurses tell me dem give him milk to drink. When me go later to visit he, he squeeze me hand and me feel so happy.”
The following day, Friday, he had the soup and porridge she took for him but when she returned in the afternoon he had tubes hooked up to his mouth. She became worried but the nurses assured her that he would be ok.
The next morning as Sherry was on her way to the hospital she started receiving calls on her cellular phone from relatives who wanted to know about her location.
She said although they did not tell her that her husband had died she had a feeling something was wrong. When she got to the hospital she met everyone crying and her worst fears were confirmed.
She recounted that her husband was left lying in the hammock under the house the entire night after the men lifted him in. She kept checking on him often to see if he could manage to walk up the stairs but he could not move.
At 6 am the following day she was shocked that he was not in the hammock and found him lying in front of the bathroom door in the yard.
She shook him and asked him if he was not “sober” yet and he tried to tell her something and was moving his hands to his head but she could not understand what he was saying.
Balkarran was laid to rest on Wednesday last, leaving her with their six children: Seeta, 17; Champa, 14; Cindy, 12; Navita, 11; three-year-old Ajay and 11-month-old Dinesh. He also left to mourn two older children from a previous union. The woman is worried about how she would be able to take care of her children now, especially the two youngest.
Her husband had started a small kitchen garden and she plans to continue it to provide for the family and to sell a little from it.
Only Cindy and Navita are attending school while Seeta and Champa were forced to leave school early. According to her, “Seeta is my helping hand. She was sick and that’s why she had to leave school and didn’t get to write exams.”
Just before her father was hospitalized, he took her to the computer school to make arrangements for her to start a course and was supposed to return to pay for it. Sadly, her mother cannot afford to send her now.