– mother despairs at sloth in probe
The mother of Sheema Mangar believes that the fabric sent overseas for testing is the key to finding who hit down and killed her daughter, but fears poor investigation and the sloth of the police in securing the results will deny her justice.
“All they doing is concentrating on the fabric but they ain’t trying to find eyewitnesses or do anything. The fabric is the key to the case but no one ain’t paying attention to that. When they get that fabric they should have done the testing urgently,” a worried Radica Thakoor said.
During an interview yesterday, the woman said all the police have been telling her is that the fabric is still at the overseas lab and there have been no further developments in the investigation.
She said she made several unsuccessful attempts to speak with Crime Chief Seelall Persaud last week. This newspaper was unable to reach Persaud for an update on the testing yesterday.
Thakoor said she has also failed in her bid to meet President Bharrat Jagdeo and Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee but has vowed to never give up in her fight for justice for her daughter who was very close to realizing her dream, which was becoming an accountant.
She told this newspaper that while there is a huge possibility that she will never get justice, “I can’t give up. I got to stand up fuh meh rights. She did not deserve that.”
The woman added that she will even lead a protest to ensure that those in authority hear her concerns. “I will not give up,” she stressed.
She added that it is time Guyana gets its own lab to deal with fabric testing among other things.
Forensic investigation, she added, is another issue that needs to be addressed urgently so that crimes could be solved in a timely manner and “families don’t have to endure additional grief”.
Thakoor also informed this newspaper that the cross placed at the site where her daughter was robbed before being dragged by a car, was stolen less than 24 hours later. Mangar’s colleagues at Demerara Bank had planted a wooden cross bearing her name on the traffic island at Camp and Church streets during a silent lamplight vigil days after she was killed.
“It is very painful that that cross was moved… because that was one of the few physical reminders I had of her. How can someone move it?” she asked sadly.
She said her daughter was very patriotic as she had turned down opportunities to live abroad. “The country that she loved so much failed her in the end,” the woman added.
Urgent counselling
Thakoor told Stabroek News yesterday that her husband and son have slipped into a state of depression. The worried woman said that they both need urgent professional help as “they keepin everything bottle up inside them. They ain’t talking.”
The woman said she is particularly concerned about her 14-year-old son, who was very close to Mangar. She said the teen has been very withdrawn and is displaying a “don’t care attitude”. But “I can’t give up. I got to be the strong one for the family,” she stressed.
On September 10 some time after 6 pm, 20-year-old Sheema Mangar was robbed of her mobile phone as she waited for transportation on North Road, close to Camp Street.
Mangar, according to reports, chased the perpetrator, who jumped into a car and ran her down when she tried to stop him from fleeing. The woman was dragged from the Bedford Methodist Church at Camp Street and North Road to the intersection of Camp and Church streets. She died hours later at the St Joseph Mercy Hospital from a ruptured spleen, which was one of the many injuries she sustained during the incident.
Acting on information, police had held a suspect and detained his car. Police investigators recovered fabric on the vehicle and it was suspected that it came from the clothing Mangar was wearing on the night of the incident.
However, the suspect was later released from custody on station bail.