A 23-year-old woman of Canefield, East Canje is battling for her life at the New Amsterdam Hospital after she was stabbed repeatedly on Saturday morning by her estranged, reputed husband who has since committed suicide.
Sheniza Mangru, 23, a salesgirl at a general store in NA is a patient in the Intensive Care Unit of the hospital nursing 12 stab wounds including on both breasts, five on her back and one on her right knee.
She was on her way to work around 6:40 am when her former lover of nine years, who was apparently waiting on her at the corner of the street, attacked her.
She told relatives that he asked her why she was not “turning on the phone” so he could speak to their two daughters, aged, seven and four. She responded that she would turn on another phone that the children would use and attempted to walk away.
Just then he told her “ah gat something fuh yuh and he push he hand in he pocket,” whipped out a knife and started inflicting the wounds in the region of her heart.
Relatives told Stabroek News that she collapsed to the ground bleeding. She was rushed to the hospital but surprisingly, despite the extent of her injuries, was treated and sent away.
Around midday “blood started to pour out from she breast” while police was there taking statements. She was immediately taken to the hospital again.
Rattan, after the attack, threw the knife in the trench and escaped, leaving his bicycle behind. While running he consumed the poisonous substance and he too collapsed and was rushed to the hospital where he succumbed around 5 pm yesterday.
Her sister-in-law, Priya Ally said the woman was having difficulty breathing and was in a lot of pain and discomfort.
She said the man was in the habit of abusing Mangru and she had left about five or six times. Each time, her relatives would encourage her to reconcile and she would comply.
This time she made up her mind not to return to him and had even filed for support for the children.
On March 20, she recalled, the couple had a fight and Rattan reportedly beat her and “run she wid a cutlass.” She sought refuge in a neighbour’s yard and the man “went for the police to see that she take what she want and go ‘long she way.”
The police, according to Priya, asked her whether she wanted the matter to go further and she responded in the negative. She then left with her belongings to live at the home of Priya and her brother, Imran Ally, 25.
Priya said too that the man would threaten her sister-in-law and “molest she all over.”
The following week she was walking out of her street to go to work when he pulled out a knife and threatened to kill her if she did not go back to him.
She told him to put away the knife and that she would go. At the same time, Ally who works at Guysuco, happened to pass on a tractor and saw the man “harassing he sister” and confronted him.
Rattan dropped the knife and escaped and Ally took his sister to the police station to make a report. The man was subsequently arrested and charged and his lawyer asked for May 11 for the continuation of the case.
Priya said they would normally watch her until she walked out of the long street but that day they got busy and did not see what transpired.
She said they received a call about the stabbing but by the time they got to the scene she had already been taken to the hospital.
A relative of Rattan who asked that her name not be published told Stabroek News that Mangru had moved out of the home four weeks ago and ever since Rattan had been begging her to return but she refused. According to the relative, the woman was involved in another relationship. “He (Rattan) deh always saying that if she nah left the man, he gon stab she and he gon drink poison”, the relative recalled. “We does quarrel with he foh just leave she alone, move on with he life but he don’t want that”, she added.
The relative said that sometime between 6:30am and 7am on Saturday, as Mangru waited on a car to pick her up and take her to her job as a sales girl at Canefield, about two villages away, Rattan attacked her and stabbed her multiple times with a knife. He then drank poison that he carried.
Two of Mangru’s relatives upon being alerted, rushed her to the hospital while two women took Rattan to the hospital. Both were admitted.
The relative said that the couple had had a volatile relationship which got physical at times with both hitting each other. “None of them does tek last lick”, the relative said.
Rattan is survived by his mother, five sisters and two brothers.
