-was beaten, burnt
Almost two days after he was battered, burnt and left with his hands and feet bound in his East Canje home, a 78-year-old man succumbed to his wounds.
Vishnu Persaud of Number Two Village, East Canje Berbice, a pensioner and farmer, was discovered around 10 am on Saturday in his home “with his hands and feet tied and a cloth tied over his mouth,” police said in release yesterday.
He was taken to the New Amsterdam Hospital that morning, police reported, but died around 2 pm on Sunday. A post-mortem examination, conducted by Dr Vivekanand Brijmohan, has since given the cause of death as “cerebral haemorrhage and blunt trauma.”
Persaud lived alone. His wife passed away five years ago and his two sons live abroad.
Chandra Devi Ramkissoon, who lives across the road from the deceased, told Stabroek News last evening that she cooked for Persaud. She last saw Persaud some time around 6.30 pm on Friday. She surmised that he would have been attacked some time on Friday night or early Saturday morning. “I know Uncle Vishnu went to a jandi [Hindu religious function] on Friday. He come by me about 5 pm and left and went to Cumberland to look for some gutter for his house,” Ramkissoon recalled. “He came back to my house again about 6.30 that afternoon and I give him his food and he left and go home.”
Persaud, the woman said, would normally go to the market early every Saturday morning. So when she had not seen him by 8 am she began asking other neighbours if they had seen him. “Uncle Vishnu does go and buy his vegetables and so and bring it for me to cook but after I see it getting late and he didn’t come I start asking for him,” she said.
Ramkissoon went to Persaud’s next door neighbour, who also said he had not seen the man.
“I was worried because I know he troubles with heart problem and high blood pressure,” the woman said.
Persaud’s gate was padlocked from the inside, Ramkissoon said, so they used his neighbour’s side gate to gain entry to his yard. “We started looking around and all the doors them was locked from inside so we know Uncle Vishnu had to be inside,” Ramkissoon said. “We take a stick and knock the flooring where I know his bed would be to see if he would make some sound to let us know he was in there but we heard nothing.”
Two gates in Persaud’s backyard which lead to his “backlands,” Ramkissoon said, were “wide open”.
As the others tried to determine whether the man was inside, Ramkissoon left Persaud’s yard and returned home but shortly after she received a call followed by a demand that she return. During her short absence other neighbours managed to gain entry to Persaud’s home. “I rush over back and when I go in the house he was laying on his belly on the floor and his hands and foot dem were tied up and at first he look dead,” Ramkissoon said.
A window curtain was partially stuffed into Persaud’s mouth, she said, and then wrapped around his head. Other pieces of cloth were used to tie his hands and feet together. “When they pull the curtain out of his mouth it was covered in blood,” the woman recalled, “and his side and one of his hand looked scorched…it look like they light he on fire then throw water on he before it catch good.”
The man was still breathing when he was discovered, Ramkissoon said, and they immediately rushed him to the hospital. “We call the police right away but we didn’t wait for them to reach… we were trying to save his life,” Ramkissoon said.
Persaud’s house was ransacked. Ramkissoon told this newspaper that clothes and other items were scattered about the place. Drawers were dislodged and the man’s wardrobe emptied. The woman suspects that more than one person entered the man’s house with the intention of robbing him.
There was no sign of forced entry to the deceased’s home, but it was observed that his verandah door, while it appeared to be closed, was left open. It was the man’s habit, Ramkissoon said, to sit on his verandah with a cup of tea in the evening. She believes it was through the verandah door the attackers gained entry to Persaud’s home. “I am still shocked over this whole thing,” Ramkissoon said. “He was a quiet man. Imagine you can’t even be safe in your home.”
Persaud’s main sources of income, according the woman, were his pension and the money he made from selling the peas and vegetables he cultivated. His sons, she said, also sent money for him but he was not solely dependent on them.