Neighbours and relatives held a picketing exercise in front of the Leonora Magistrate’s Court yesterday to demand justice for a woman after an order was served on her to be evicted from her mother’s house.
The woman, Leelawattie Sukhwa, called Roani, 38, of Lot 141 ‘C’ Field, Leonora, West Coast Demerara is scheduled to return to court on March 15. The court ordered her to remove from the house, after her mother, Surujdai Ramgobin applied for protection and occupation orders against her. Magistrate Rochelle Liverpool ruled in favour of the applicant and Sukhwa is currently seeking shelter at the home of a neighbour, who is a widow.
Prior to that, on February 20, Sukhwa was charged with chasing her mother and sister with a knife and threatening to kill them. But after listening to the facts, the magistrate dismissed the case.
Ramgobin claimed that Sukhwa verbally abused her in the presence of neighbours, relatives and passersby and she is afraid of her.
A neighbour, Siddiqi Haniff, tearfully related to Stabroek News that Sukhwa’s life was “turned upside down” when her sister moved back to the house to live with her mother over two years ago.
According to him, prior to that Sukhwa and her mother shared a good relationship.
He explained that Sukhwa has been suffering from ill health since she consumed an overdose of pills in an attempt to end her life and escape an abusive marriage some years ago. Before that she worked as an accountant at the Leonora Cottage Hospital and as a cashier at a store.
After consuming the pills she fell into a coma and spent weeks in the hospital. She later moved back to her mother’s house with her young daughter, Narifa Rahaman, who is now 19 years old.
As a result of her medical condition, she stopped cooking and depended on her mother and neighbours to give her food.
He said that when the daughter was 14, her aunt had visited and ordered her to leave the house.
The girl went to live with her father and the following year she wrote the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate examinations and was successful. She is now a teacher and attends the Cyril Potter College of Education.
Her father migrated and having no place to stay, she got married at the age of 17.
Haniff said sadly that Sukhwa is once again a victim of physical and emotional abuse. Sukhwa’s brother, Satyadev Singh, admitted to this newspaper that the constant abuse meted out to his sister would cause her to retaliate sometimes and use expletives.
“Anybody in their right mind would defend themselves, but she is not a violent person…,” the brother said.
Singh who resides on the East Bank Demerara said he is unable to defend his sister because whenever he visits he is met with a locked gate.
Sukhwa showed this newspaper chop marks on her hand which she sustained from the abuse.
After a while, the sister built a house in the same yard and took her mother to live with her, leaving Sukhwa in the original house with only her clothes and a bed.
Her brother said she was subjected to “jail-like treatment” at the home and that when the “false allegation” was made against her she told him she preferred to stay at the Leonora Police Station, where she was taken to, than go back to the situation she was in. She even told him she wanted to kill herself but he talked her out of it.
New Amsterdam Psychiatric Hospital
Meanwhile, neighbours saw the mother and sister forcing Sukhwa into a car around 3’o clock one morning; they returned several hours later without her.
When Sukhwa’s daughter, Rahaman, went to enquire, it was learned that they had taken her to the New Amsterdam Psychiatric Hospital (NAPH) after obtaining a referral from the West Demerara Regional Hospital.
Rahaman, along with her uncle and the neighbours then went to the NAPH where they were told that she had been discharged as “nothing was wrong with her. But they did not have a number to contact us.” Haniff questioned how Sukhwa could have been taken to the NAPH without a magistrate ordering a psychiatric evaluation and said he believed “due process wasn’t followed. Something is wrong somewhere. I can’t see how a medical practitioner can deem her unfit…”
Haniff said that as neighbours, they would do their best to ensure that she gets the justice she deserves, but he hopes good sense would prevail and the magistrate would reinstate her into the house. He pointed out that the neighbour she is living with is a widow and he does not know long she would be able to keep her. He said they are “prepared to assist her with food… Even if they [mother and sister] don’t want to take care of her, let her at least have a shelter.”
Some of the placards that they displayed read, “Roani is sane,” “Seeking justice for Roani,” “Roani needs her home, not asylum,” “Stop the abuse,” “Roani’s rights must be restored now” and “Eye-pass and abuse of Roani must stop.” The neighbours had formed a delegation and met with Divisional Commander Leslie James to explain the woman’s plight. Haniff said the commander gave them permission to hold the peaceful protest.
