Helpful T&T teacher stabbed to death after dispute with four men

(Trinidad Express) A PRIMARY schoolteacher was fatally stabbed on Saturday night, following an argument with four men over a “bad drive”.
Dead is 43-year-old Jagdis Harripersad, of Maraj Lane, Longdenville.
Four men from the Longdenville area have been detained by police and are currently in custody, assisting homicide detectives with their investigations into Harripersad’s death.
At the crime scene on Saturday night, police also arrested the councillor for the area, Rana Persad.
Persad, who won the Longdenville/Talparo electoral district for the United National Congress (UNC) in the 2010 local government elections, was yesterday charged with using “incendiary language”.
Harripersad, a Standard Two teacher at the Raghunanan Road Government Primary School, spent the majority of Saturday doing what he loved to do best—help others.
Harripersad and his friends from the Ragoonanan Road Sports Club spent Saturday organising a fundraiser for another club member who is currently facing financial difficulties. “One of the members of the club is a mechanic and while he was working on a maxi it burst into flames and was destroyed. The man needs money to pay back for the maxi, so daddy and the other club members decided to hold a barbecue to help him raise funds,” Harripersad’s daughter Ginine, 17, told the Express yesterday.
Harripersad was the father of two—Shereen, 19, and Ginine.
When the Express visited Harripersad’s Maraj Lane home yesterday, his wife, Meena, 45, was too distraught to speak.
From daybreak on Saturday, Harripersad was with the other club members organising the barbecue, Ginine said yesterday. “Around 5.30 (p.m.) the rain set up to fall, so he decided to drop me home. After he dropped me off, he went back down the road to the house where the barbecue was taking place,” Ginine said.
Harripersad returned to the house where the barbecue was taking place and, after a while, began to complain of feeling tired and decided to head home.
It was on his trip back home that tragedy struck.
Around 7 p.m. near Lawrence Wong Road, a stone’s throw away from his home and the school where he taught, Harripersad was involved in an altercation with a carload of men as a result of a “bad drive”.
One of the men exited the vehicle and stabbed Harripersad in the chest with a cutlass.
Harripersad slumped over the steering wheel of his black Nissan Wingroad PCE 9891 and died on the spot.
The men drove away.
Officers from the Cunupia Police Station and homicide detectives went to Ragoonanan Road to investigate Harripersad’s death.
The crime scene was said to be volatile because both Harripersad and the four suspects involved in his murder are all from the Longdenville area.
At the crime scene, Persad, the councillor for the area, was eventually arrested.
Around 4.30 a.m. yesterday, Persad was charged with using “incendiary language” against police constable Kevin Jacob.
Persad confirmed he was out on bail when the Express contacted him yesterday.
National Security Minister Jack Warner was contacted and informed about the arrest, Persad said.
Persad is scheduled to appear before a Chaguanas magistrate tomorrow to answer the charges.
An autopsy is scheduled to be performed on Harripersad tomorrow at the Forensic Science Centre, St James.
Harripersad’s teaching colleague, Neil Naidoo, yesterday remembered him as a “family-oriented man who was very helpful”.
“He would not say no to anyone who asked for help. He believed in helping others. He loved helping others,” Naidoo said at Harripersad’s home yesterday.