One of the suspects in the smothering to death of remigrant Ishwar Mithu committed suicide before any credible information could be gathered from him while a second man is yet to be found.
Despite these setbacks, relatives vow that they will continue to keep their “ears and eyes open” while expressing the confidence that one day, those responsible for the February 24, 2010 murder will face the full force of the law.
More than one year has passed since the Peter’s Hall, East Bank Demerara community was thrown into shock when the body of the 65-year-old hearing impaired man was found dead in his home which had been robbed of several household appliances.
Senior police officials told Stabroek News that the trail has gone cold since investigators have not been able to pick up any “real evidence”. As in hundreds of unsolved cases, they assured this newspaper that investigations into Mithu’s death are still ongoing.
Following the murder, police were seeking two men that the remigrant had evicted from his home.
A relative told this newspaper recently that one of the men, a deportee was arrested by the police while the other remains at large. The deportee who relocated to the West Demerara area after he was thrown out by Mithu, spent four days in police custody but was released after his lawyer moved to the High Court.
The relative told this newspaper that about six months ago the deportee, who Mithu had met while living in the US, drank poison. The man could not say what caused the deportee to take his own life.
One day after Mithu’s murder, relatives had said that the deportee was sent back to Guyana two years earlier and since Mithu had already remigrated here, the man along with another subsequently moved in. Mithu lived alone.
He however told the men to leave his home after he got information that they were involved in illegal activities.
According to the relatives, police had contacted them several times to say that they were trying their best. The last time was about two months ago when information was passed to the police that three persons were part of the group that broke into the Lot 73 address and killed Mithu before tumbling up the house and escaping with appliances.
However the men were later released by the police.
Asked how the perpetrators could have committed their crime undetected, the relative said that rain was falling heavily when the incident is reported to have occurred.
The relative said it was likely that the intention was to rob and not to kill Mithu. He explained that whoever committed the act knew that the elderly man could not hear.
He went on to say, that Mithu liked to entertain people whether he knew them or not.
“He was very open-hearted”, he said explaining that the man lived abroad for 32 years before returning to Guyana when he retired. He returned home, about two years before he was killed.
The relative insisted that even though police have made little progress, “I wouldn’t give up”. He said that he intends to track “every little information that he gets” and is clinging to the hope that someone will be held and charged.
Around 3 pm the remigrant was found by his son with his hands tied behind his back and his feet bound with pieces of cloth. He was found on his bed in his room located on the upper flat of the two- storey building. A pillow that was apparently used to smother him to death was nearby with blood on it. The bedroom was also ransacked.
A microwave, a washing machine, two gas bottles, a television set, a five-disc stereo set and a DVD player were discovered missing.
A resident became suspicious when she noticed several window panes missing from the kitchen window and the cut grillwork. Mithu was not seen for the morning. The man’s relatives were subsequently informed and on entering the house made the gruesome discovery.
It is believed that the perpetrators used an opening in Mithu’s back fence to enter and exit. Police used a tracker dog to reconstruct the path of the perpetrators. The animal led them to an area near the river and investigators suspect that the perpetrators had a boat waiting.
