In a drunken rage, a man attacked his step son with a cutlass, inflicting severe wounds on him after he stood up against the brutal treatment of his mother.
“I thought is broad-siding, he de broad-siding meh son but when I do catch meh self I see is chop he been chopping he up,” Leilawatie Narine, mother of wounded Anil Persaud, told Stabroek News yesterday, “Meh other children dem been eating lunch right deh and see de whole thing.”
Persaud, 19, was rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital on Sunday afternoon after his stepfather, reportedly under the influence of alcohol, dealt him several chops about the body. The teenager was taken to theatre for emergency surgery and was later admitted to the hospital’s High Dependency Unit. However, Persaud’s condition improved yesterday morning and doctor’s transferred him to the Male Surgical Ward.
The attacker was still on the run up to press time yesterday.
Narine explained that her reputed husband was jealous because Persaud’s father, her first husband, had telephoned earlier that day. Her reputed husband, she said, hit her to the face and when Persaud asked him why he was doing that he began chopping the young man before escaping.
It was a normal Sunday for Narine and her family. The woman was cooking lunch when her ex-husband called and asked to speak to Persaud. Narine said she told the man that their son was out but she would deliver the message. Her current partner was at home and like always was aware of the telephone conversation. “Meh son came home shortly after that,” Narine recalled, “And I take food fuh he and meh other children. Anil go in de hammock and sit down there to eat and meh three-year-old and eight-year-old son dem been sitting around he.”
As her sons were eating, Narine recalled, her reputed husband approached her and demanded to know whether she had given Persaud the message from his father. Then, referring to an earlier incident, the enraged stepfather began asking whether she had informed her teenage son that his biological father had verbally abused him on the phone. “I tell he [her reputed husband] that I ain’t care if he and meh ex-husband curse up one another and is then he give me one cuff to my lef’ side face…ah feel like meh whole half side face fall off,” Narine told Stabroek News.
The woman said she collapsed and couldn’t really see clearly but she heard Persaud ask his step-father, “Wa you knock meh mother fuh?” This only added fuel to the man’s anger and shortly after threatening to chop Persaud he grabbed a cutlass and began hitting the teenager about the body.
Persaud did not scream as he was being chopped, the terrified mother recalled. At first she thought that he was being beaten with the cutlass. It was only when the teen said, “Ah boy, ah boy” and blood started to ooze from his wounds that the woman realized what had happened. Her younger sons, Narine said, witnessed the incident and up to yesterday afternoon were still “disturbed.”
The woman silently endured almost seven years of verbal and physical abuse inflicted by her reputed husband. She alleged that the man was a “steady” drinker and she often saw the “bad” side of him. Narine said she had never reported any of the incidents to the police because she really believed he would change. “He use to promise meh that thing going to change but dem never change,” the distressed woman said, “Now that is meh son he do something to, I ain’t going to take it no more…he take things too far.”
Narine gave a statement to police yesterday morning. The woman said that while she is afraid because the man is on the run there is nothing she and her family can do but be careful. A fearful Narine expressed hope yesterday afternoon that police would soon arrest her reputed husband.
“When I go to de station yesterday,” Narine recalled, “Dem police ask meh why I bear up with so much thing for so long… but is only now I know wa I shoulda do since long. I shoulda get he [her reputed husband] outa de house… is meh mother house we live in.”
Persaud sustained three wounds to his hand and one each to the back, head and knee. Relatives told this newspaper yesterday afternoon that the teen’s condition was still listed as “serious” but they were optimistic that he would feel better soon.
