The grandmother of Sangeeta Persaud, the 14-year-old who died after an ‘exorcism’ last month, is maintaining that the girl was prodded, squeezed and palmed during the ceremony, while Health Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy has said an investigation of the case is underway.
According to Chaitranie Ramotar, on March 28, she watched as Pastor Ewert Cummings, Pastor Gulab, their wives and an Amerindian woman whose name she does not know, attempted to rid her granddaughter of a demon. The child’s mother, Nandkumarie Jaikissoon, was also present at the church. “…There is a father above,” Ramotar told Stabroek News yesterday, “and he looking down on us and he know that me talking de truth. Dem cyan seh that dem na get physical with she.”
Last Friday, at a press briefing attended by the persons involved in the exorcism, the girl’s mother denied that she was beaten during the ceremony, saying the exorcism only involved prayers.
Ramsammy told Stabroek News yesterday that the girl’s death remains inexplicable because all the relevant facts are not yet known but he added that he was certain that the child was in need of urgent medical care. He described the case as one “of interest” to the health ministry and disclosed that an investigation is underway. The minister would not elaborate on the nature of the probe and what it intends to unearth but he said the case is being monitored.
Persaud, called ‘Sheena,’ had lived with Ramotar periodically since she was nine-years-old in a little one-room home at Lot 26 Canal Number Two. After Persaud had an episode during breakfast on March 28, the woman called Jaikissoon, who soon arrived. Not long after, Pastor Cummings turned up. It was Jaikissoon, Ramotar said, who first said that Persaud was “demon possessed.” Cummings, according to her, immediately came to the same conclusion when he set eyes on the girl. Jaikissoon and Cummings spent three hours in the house “tekking out jumbie from the girl,” Ramotar again related. “When he come he bring a small bottle with anointed oil and he throw some in she mouth and then he give me daughter to rub it on Sheena [Persaud] and he keep praying and so over she,” Ramotar recalled. “Is later down then dem take she outside and carry she off to de church and I go with dem.”
Shortly after they arrived at the church, Persaud was placed to lie in front by the altar Ramotar said. Pastor Gulab and his wife arrived around 1pm to join in the “singing,” “clapping” and “praying.” “All of dem been in front by de altar with Sheena but I been sitting in de third bench,” she explained, “but I de seein’ everything and I de praying silently in meh mind.”
Cummings was “pressing” her granddaughter about the body before Gulab and his wife showed up. After Gulab arrived, he too joined in squeezing Persaud about the body, including her face. At one point, Ramotar related, Gulab grabbed her granddaughter’s face. “Was this same man Gulab that start calling out for these Hindu spirits Hanuman, Kali and so and then he tek he hand and put it by my granddaughter private part and de Amerindian woman put she hand on he hand and dem start applying pressure down there and is like dem been trying to get the demon out from she womb,” she added.
It was Gulab, the woman said, who recommended that lime juice and salt be given to her granddaughter. Jaikissoon then went out and got the lime from a resident. “She come back with two green skin lime she get from a boy and she wring it in a cup and dem mix in salt and dem thrown in Sheena mouth but meh cyant tell yuh if Sheena swallow it or if she vomit it out…I remember that everything dem been trying to throw down she throat she was spitting out,” Ramotar said.
Gulab then suggested that the child be taken to the hospital for treatment. As they were cleaning the child, the Amerindian woman, Ramotar said, came to her and said that Persaud was having her “thing” (meaning her menstrual cycle) so they went out and get a sanitary napkin and put it on her. “Me cyant tell you fuh real if is she period she get cause me don’t check pon that,” Persaud’s grandmother added.
The child was taken to the West Demerara Regional Hospital where she died around 10pm that night.
During the news conference last week, the pastors defended their actions in the case and accused Ramotar of misleading the press. ERC Chairman Juan Edghill, who called the briefing, declared that at no time was physical force or violence used to extract any spirit from the girl. Since the incident, he said, Cummings has been under tremendous pressure to even continue his ministry in the area even though more than 90% of church members have affirmed their confidence in him as a pastor.
Relating her version of that day’s events, Jaikissoon said Ramotar told her to bring the pastor because Persaud was demon possessed. She said that her daughter was taken to church and while they prayed, Persaud started to behave like an animal. “Nobody beat her, nobody do her nothing. She was lying there and everybody was praying. There was the grandmother, me, the pastor, two wives, more members was there praying for her and then she just deh like if she sleeping normal,” she said. She said that they thought she had gotten weak and carried her to the West Demerara Regional Hospital. Cummings also denied beating the girl. “I act according to what I believe, the bible says if there is anybody sick then they should send for the elders of the church and the elders should come and pray for them and use oil and anoint them and if they commit any sin, the sin shall be forgiven. So I did that…I just put some oil in her forehead,” he said. “We don’t beat nobody,” he declared.
‘A huge mistake’
Meanwhile, Ramsammy said the decision not to take Persaud to the hospital immediately after she took ill was a “huge mistake” and he insisted that medical care was critical. “I am saying that when people are sick they should be treated at a hospital, a medical facility, this has been our message to the public,” he noted.
While Ramsammy said he respects individual religious beliefs and would not encourage anyone to shy away from them, he noted there is no existing evidence any of “these interventions” assist anyone who is in need of medical care. Ramsammy stressed he is not contesting people’s beliefs, pointing out that he also believes in prayers. However, he added that alternative methods should not take priority over medical treatment.
Previously, the ministry had issued advisories to the public as it relates to spiritual healing and had strongly advised against disregarding medical care for faith healing. Ramsammy said the ministry’s position has not changed as it relates to faith healing, but he emphasised there are no suggestions for people to stop believing.
He said it is still unclear what happened to Persaud, but frankly stated the failure to seek medical care for her was a slip-up. He said the ministry is currently trying to figure out what happened.
Jaikissoon, Ramotar said, is currently with her third husband and has been with the man since Persaud was about nine-years-old. Jaikissoon, the woman explained, was married for the first time at 16. “She first husband drink poison and dead and then she tek up with she four children father (Chinee Persaud),” Ramotar said.
When Persaud was three-years-old, Ramotar said, Jaikissoon went to Bushy Park, Parika where she met her current partner. Jaikissoon, according to her mother, took her two sons to an orphanage, and took Persaud and her youngest son to Chinee Persaud.
Chinee’s older sister, Ramotar recalled, had taken Persaud in and cared for the child. During this time the older boys were in the orphanage and youngest with other relatives. Six years after Jaikissoon gave up her children, Ramotar explained, she suddenly decided that she wanted them back. “She went to de orphanage and she collect de two boys and she collect Sheena from she powa [father’s older sister] and she carry dem home with she and she husband that she got now,” Ramotar said.
It wasn’t long before Jaikissoon showed up at her Canal home, Ramotar recalled, and asked her to keep Persaud. Jaikissoon, the woman said, told her that her current reputed husband was starving Persaud.
For more than five years, Ramotar explained, Persaud moved back and forth between her house and her mother’s house. “Fuh months at a time she never used to go to school…every time de mother come and tek she is done she use to done go school ‘til she come back by me and then a piece ah time she used to ride from where she mother living then catch a car out on de road just fuh come to be Kaywall government school in here,” she added.
