A cousin who returned to Guyana with the construction worker accused of murdering a teenager in Trinidad and Tobago has also gone into hiding and relatives are calling on the duo to turn themselves in to the police.
Dhanwantie Sookram, the mother of Ramesh ‘Alvin’ Sookram, 25, said that men who identified themselves as the police are “harassing” her family. “Wednesday night, they come and proper harass me, beat up meh other son, put he fuh kneel down and dem kick he. Dem had long, long gun and them beat he with the gun,” the tearful woman told Stabroek News at her Soesdyke, East Bank Demerara home yesterday.
She said she believed the men were in fact relatives of the murdered girl. “Dem say dem ah police but them ain’t had on police clothes. My husband ain’t know fuh read and write and dem show he one paper that they come fuh search and he open the door and let them in,” she said.
Ramesh Sookram is the main suspect in the brutal murder of 18-year-old Nikita Ramischand, the daughter of prominent Guyana-born attorney Odai Ramischand. Nikita was believed to have been ambushed on April 25, while walking to her mother’s salon in the compound of their LP 46 Maracas Royal Road, Maracas, St Joseph, Trinidad and Tobago home. She was reportedly dragged behind the premises and brutally murdered. Her bloodied body was discovered behind the salon at about 8 pm. An autopsy revealed that the teenager bled to death after her throat was slit. She also suffered six stab wounds to the abdomen.
Yesterday, Dhanwantie said that the ordeal has left her stressed out. She admitted that her son returned home briefly after the murder but she did not know at the time that he was a suspect in it. “Wednesday night [April 25], around 11 o’clock we were sleeping, this boy call meh phone. When I answer, he say, ‘Mommy, I coming home.’ Me seh how you wait till now fuh tell me you coming home, why you didn’t call me earlier? He said, ‘no,’ he coming home,” she related.
She told this newspaper that her son and his 16-year-old male cousin arrived on a 1.15 am flight and she and other relatives received them at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport.
“I ask he if he want me to come to the airport. He say ‘yes’ and I go and collect he because me was so happy. Is three years he go away and I begging he to come home and he nah come,” she said.
She said the boys revealed nothing about a murder but she found it strange that her son woke up later that morning and left around 11 am without indicating where he was going. “Thursday morning he ask me for a phone call and me give he a phone call and when he ready fuh left, he pick up meh lil daughter phone and say he coming back… He pick up he bag wa he come with and he tell me he coming back just now and he gone and ain’t come back. That’s what I try telling dese people but dem saying me is he mother and I gotta know where he deh,” she said.
‘I hold my heart
and I go down’
Dhanwantie said shortly after her son left, two relatives of the murdered teen visited her home, inquiring about his whereabouts and revealed the murder to her. She admitted being untruthful to the men, relating to this newspaper that she had told them her son was in Trinidad. She explained that she did this since she did not know what the problem was and the reason for their unexpected visit to her house.
“Alvin ain’t deh home. Alvin deh Trinidad. That’s what I tell them but afterward how I sorry I tell them. I shoulda really tell them the truth but I didn’t know what was the problem. They ask, ‘You sure Alvin ain’t deh home here?’ I say no Alvin deh Trinidad and he laughing and talking and gyaffing all the time. Then he gon tell me Nikita find dead in de yard with a f**king hammer lash in she head, she f**king throat slit and she f**king back stab up with a knife. Well when he say that, I hold my heart and I go down,” she recalled.
The woman said the men left and returned with two traffic officers, who further quizzed her about her son’s whereabouts. A search was conducted at her home but the police came up empty-handed, she said.
The following day, Dhanwantie recounted, she received a telephone call from Alvin, who indicated that he would be returning home. She said she told him that police had visited the home and disclosed to her the allegations that were made against him. The woman said her son denied murdering Ramischand. “He say mommy me ain’t know nothing about that. He ain’t do nothing like that, how he never kill no girl ah Trinidad. Me say so why you come home like that and he say that he come home, he just come home and he cut off the phone and never call back,” she stated.
During the weekend that followed, Dhanwantie said, not only was her son’s name mentioned in the media but her nephew as well who had travelled to Guyana with him. Information about the 16-year-old being listed as the second suspect in the murder, she said, prompted him to leave his home as well. He is now missing. “Me son go way the Thursday self but this one wait till Monday or Tuesday the other week to go away after he hear that they looking for a second person,” she pointed out.
Both families are calling for the duo to turn themselves into the police.
“I want him to give up himself. Dey want dey son give in he self to. Alvin nah really know how to read and write but whoever see this paper and can tell he, leh he turn in he self, leh he give up, leh he do it for me,” she pleaded.
Met Nikita in 2010
Dhanwantie told Stabroek News that she met Nikita in 2010 while she was on vacation in Guyana and added that the girl and her son had been in a relationship for more than two years, and not three months as was reported in the media.
“I don’t think her family know about the relationship, but one of de sister gotta know because one of the sister reach with me in 2010 when dey de come by some family fuh walk. She didn’t come by me house. Dem been invite me to go reach with she in town and I go at a restaurant name Hibiscus and I meet with Nikita,” she explained.
Dhanwantie said the girl appeared very pleasant and she was very saddened about the tragedy. “She talk nice. She was a very nice girl. I wouldn’t bad talk her. She talk nice with me and I don’t like what happened to her. I don’t like what happened at all because I have two daughters. You think I gon like something like that for happen? No. So if meh son do it, he is a criminal, he is a criminal! He shouldn’t do certain things! That is not something right he did if he do it. He shonta kill people girl children. He ain’t make life. He shonta take life and he shoulda realise he got two sisters and a mother. He shonta do that to the people dem daughter. I glad if he can give up himself. I glad if he can do that now. As early as possible. Right now he causing we to get a lot of brutalising and that’s what I ain‘t able with,” she said.
The woman added that after learning what her son was accused of, she has disowned him. “I give up on he. I lose a son. Me ain’t want he no more, he can’t come around me. It hard to lose a daughter. If he kill that girl he can’t come around me. I don’t want to see him no more. I got two more son and two more daughter,” she concluded.
