The body of Kemraj Dass known as `Lakeram’ or `Lako’, age 47 of Lot 16 Bella Dam has not been found so far. Police sources told Stabroek News that they searched the immediate environs of the vessel but came up empty handed. They have alerted maritime authorities to be on the lookout for the body.
In a press release, the police stated that they are investigating the suspected murder of Dass which occurred during Saturday night aboard a tug moored alongside a Friendship, East Bank Demerara (EBD) wharf. Initial investigations, they said, revealed that Dass and a father and son were aboard a tug which was travelling to a timber grant at Yaruni, up the Demerara River. Around midnight the father awoke and made checks and was told by his son that he had struck Dass to the head, stabbed him and thrown him overboard during an argument. The son was arrested and is in police custody assisting with investigations, police said.
When Stabroek News visited the man’s residence yesterday his sisters and other relatives were still in shock as they stated that he had only left home shortly before 6pm on Saturday to join a vessel on which he had worked three times before, to retrieve timber at a logging concession at Yaruni up the Demerara River. They added that they are angry with the way his boss had treated them. They stated that while he personally came to take Dass to board the vessel he sent a messenger yesterday morning to inform them that the man was “locked up” knowing that he had died. “Ganesh, the owner of Cheddi Lumber Yard, came yesterday (Saturday) around 5:30-6pm asking for Lako and I told him `look a man asking for you’. He went and talk with him and then came back and said I gat to go, Ganesh want me go work and collect wood up de river” Dass’s cousin, Gaitree, with whom he lived recounted.
She said that was the last time she saw him as early in the morning during the heavy rainfall, an old man came calling out to her. She stated that the man told her that Ganesh had sent him to tell her she should go to see her cousin at the Grove, East Bank Demerara Police Station. She then asked him for a number for Ganesh, the boss, but he refused saying that Ganesh was “going out” and left. She added that she panicked as her cousin had never been arrested or had had any prior police cases. She immediately called the man’s two sisters and told them that he had been locked up and they should prepare meals and buy water to take for him but while on the phone she was greeted by a reporter who informed that the man had died.
That prompted a sister of the deceased, Babita Dass, to visit the Grove Police Station where she confirmed that her brother was believed to have been murdered and that his body was still missing. Police also told them that the suspect was in custody at the station.
Describing her brother as a very quiet person who assisted his family a lot, Dass’s sister said that he had no wife or children and was the eighth child of ten.
