A watchman is believed to have been strangled and killed at New Hope, East Bank Demerara, during an attack at the KRS Construction Co site, where he was on duty.
Narotam ‘Breads’ Holodar, 54, of Lot 540 Cinema Street, Diamond, East Bank Demerara was pronounced dead on arrival at the Diamond Diagnostic Centre yesterday around 2am.
Police said that Holodar was one of two security guards on duty at the time when they were attacked and beaten by four men, according to a report of the incident. However, Holodar’s family say that the account of the attack is suspicious.
At the dead man’s home, his wife, Gaitrie Persaud, said that he left his mother’s Diamond New Housing Scheme home around 7pm on Tuesday for work. A few hours later, they received the news that he was beaten by bandits.
“Somebody call my daughter and tell her. She didn’t know he was dead,” the tearful woman said.
Recalling the ordeal, the dead man’s daughter, Rowena Holodar, said that her phone rang around 2:20am and she was told to go to hospital immediately. “The other guard’s wife called because I had my dad sim card in my phone so they had the number. She said, ‘Go and see at the hospital now, now, now;’ how thief man went in pon my father and beat them up bad, bad. I thought I going and see a cripple man, not a dead man,” the woman said.
Not realising the severity of the situation, she opted to leave the house without informing her mother and she went to the Diamond Diag-nostic Centre in the company of a friend. “I didn’t wake my mother up, I went by myself because she suffer from diabetes, pressure, all kind of things, so I went and say in the morning I gon tell she about it. So, me and my friend went,” she added.
“When I go, I see my father lie down, his whole body with sand and the knot on his hand. They tie his hands with a bed sheet. They use a sling to strangle him. One long bruise you can see on his forehead and jaw. It looked as though he fight for his life,” she related.
At the hospital, the young girl said she met with the son of the other guard on duty, Ray Samaroo, who explained to her that they drove her father to Diamond facility and that he was thought to have fallen into an unconscious state. “They say soon‘s they reach, they see he take a long gasp but they thought he was unconscious but that is when he died,” she said.
Holodar usually worked with another guard known as ‘Bald Head.’ However, ‘Bald Head’ was said to have gone on leave and had his brother-in-law, Ramcharran ‘Dave-Boy’ Samaroo fill in for him. Samaroo reportedly escaped during the attack by the bandits but later returned with others to render assistance to Holodar.
“My dad was lying on a long table and the other man (Dave-Boy) was in a hammock a short distance away. They were placed on the ground to lie down. If you see daddy got bruises on his skin and suh. This man barely got a lil knock behind his neck,” the dead man’s daughter told this newspaper.
‘He couldn’t
do nothing’
She also relayed that ‘Dave-Boy’ told police that the intruders had knocked on a window before entering and placing them both to lie on the floor. “He said he wait like a 20 minutes, because ‘Breads’ is older, [and] he couldn’t do nothing. This is what I heard he telling the police and he is 36 and he try to escape. By time he come back, ‘Breads’ was on the ground and the man gone,” she recounted.
She noted that a container at the construction site was broken into and heavy-duty machines were stolen. “They had to break the container and go in. This would have taken some time. I think this thing is a set up thing, because my dad get every single thing and the other man ain’t get one knock…” the girl added.
The young woman added that when she saw ‘Dave-Boy’ yesterday, he was wearing the shirt her father left home in and when questioned about it, the man said he wore it because he went to work shirtless.
Stabroek News visited the work site, which was found unoccupied and opened. Efforts were made to contact ‘Dave-Boy,’ who was at the time at the Grove Police Station. His brother-in-law, ‘Bald Head’, told this newspaper that he was going to work in a few hours.
The dead man’s sister-in-law, Phulmattie Chan, questioned whether Holodar was already dead at the site and she believed he should not have been removed from the site until police arrived.
“Them ain’t supposed to take a dead man from the work site there and bring a dead man to the hospital, that is wrong. They are supposed to call and wait on the police and let them come and take him away,” Chan said.
She further stated that her brother-in-law had received his salary that same evening and she suggested that the money that he had in his possession could have been a possible motive for his death.
The family said they had not been contacted by the employer, for whom Holodar worked three to four years.
Holodar’s daughter said “the only bad thing is he like drink, other than that he is a very good man and a very good father,” He was a father of three.
