Navindra Shamlall, the man who was found dead at Eccles over the weekend, died from drowning compounded by blunt cranial trauma and relatives say that they are not ruling out foul play.
“So far we only know what people in the area [Eccles] been telling us,” Lakeram Shamlall, the father of the deceased, told Stabroek News. “Nobody here wasn’t there so I can’t tell you… that is fall he fall in that drain and that is not lash he get lash in his head. We are definitely not ruling out foul play.”
Navindra, 33, had been staying with relatives for about 6 weeks at the Eccles location, his father said. The man explained that his son lived in an apartment at their family home in Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara.
“The last time I see he alive was like a week ago. He does normally come home on a Monday and clean up the place and so and then he does go back to the mandir. Is some far off relatives does run the mandir in Eccles and they come and carry he there to help them out,” Lakeram explained.
The man explained that he has since been informed that residents saw his son some time after midnight on Saturday. Lakeram said he was told that his son was in a drunken state and was trying to climb over the gate to get into the yard where the temple and the house of the owners are located.
“Like after he could not get in, they say, he gone walking and so and just fall in,” Lakeram said. “But the post-mortem saying that he drown but when I go and see the place the drain ain’t really had a lot of water or anything and there wasn’t anything around that I think he knock his head on.”
In a press release issued yesterday police said that a post-mortem examination was conducted on the body of the deceased by Government Pathologist Dr Nehaul Singh. The cause of death, police said, “was given as asphyxiation due to bronco aspiration of mud compounded by blunt cranial trauma”.
Navindra was found dead on the parapet close a culvert near a Hindu temple at the East Bank Demerara location. Residents had told Stabroek News that the man was seen consuming alcoholic beverages at a nearby shop hours before his demise.
A neighbour had told this newspaper that just after midnight on Saturday another neighbour telephoned her and informed that the man’s body was lying on the parapet close to the Hindu temple located along the eastern carriageway of the public road. She said that she subsequently visited the scene along with other neighbours. Following the discovery, police were informed and the body transported to the Lyken’s Funeral Parlour.
