Trinidad: Kids blamed for Diwali fire which left 11 homeless

(Trinidad Guardian) The par­ents of a group of chil­dren yes­ter­day ques­tioned why they were be­ing ac­cused of throw­ing a scratch bomb in­to an up­hol­stery work­shop, lead­ing to a fire which left 11 Cou­va res­i­dents home­less on Di­vali night.

Speak­ing to the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, the moth­er of one of the chil­dren, who wished not to be named, said it was un­fair for her chil­dren and nephews to be blamed for caus­ing the fire.

The fire vic­tims are Michael Ram­per­sad, 61; his sons Roger, 37 and Jim­my, 36; Jim­my’s wife Videya Lal­la, 34 and their four chil­dren ages 13, 12, 10 and sev­en and Lal­la’s broth­er Daryl Ram­narace. Two ten­ants who were rent­ing at the Ram­per­sad’s res­i­dence—Kurt Al­dol­phus and An­der­son Be­deau—al­so lost every­thing in the blaze. Adol­phus has been rent­ing a one-room self-con­tained apart­ment for the past year, while Be­deau said he be­gan stay­ing there for the last four months.

Jim­my’s old­est daugh­ter is a Cara­pichaima East Sec­ondary School pupil while his oth­er three chil­dren at­tend the Mc Bean Hin­du Pri­ma­ry School.

The in­ci­dent took place at Baksh Set­tle­ment Ex­ten­sion 1, off De­onar­ine Junc­tion, at about 6.45 pm on Tues­day.

Speak­ing with the T&T Guardian, Jim­my said he was at home with one of his sons when neigh­bours called out to him say­ing his fa­ther’s up­hol­stery work­shop was on fire. He blamed the fire on a group of chil­dren who were al­leged­ly play­ing with scratch bombs and fire­works on the street.

Jim­my said dur­ing last year’s Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions there was a sim­i­lar in­ci­dent when chil­dren al­leged­ly again threw fire­works in­to his fa­ther’s work­shop which caused a small fire.

“We man­aged to out that and we tired beg them to stop that, look what they did. Now, this year, the same chil­dren’s play with these dan­ger­ous things now caused our home to be burnt down leav­ing all of us home­less and with noth­ing,” Jim­my said.

How­ev­er, the moth­er of one of the chil­dren chal­lenged this claim, say­ing they were all in the front yard lim­ing when they no­ticed the work­shop on fire.

“We don’t know what caused it and it is wrong for them to blame the chil­dren. We tried to out the fire and I my­self called Michael to tell him that his house was on fire. And I was the one who called the fire of­fi­cers,” the emo­tion­al woman said.

The woman’s broth­er said he at­tempt­ed to out the fire with a hose he had pulled from his yard.

“I grabbed the hose and tried to out it and with buck­ets up­on buck­ets of wa­ter we couldn’t. In about 20 min­utes the fire spread and de­stroyed the homes. It is a sad thing, luck­i­ly no one died in the blaze.

“But, you can’t ac­cuse peo­ple so…how they can ac­cuse the chil­dren?” the chil­dren’s un­cle said.

The moth­er added: “So then we are mad par­ents to give the chil­dren fire­works then? The chil­dren were play­ing with fun snaps and starlight right in our yard…they were not on the road and they did not throw any­thing in the work­shop. But you can’t ac­cuse peo­ple so—how they can ac­cuse the chil­dren.”

Asked if they knew about last year’s in­ci­dent which was al­leged to have been caused by the same chil­dren’s play, the moth­er replied: “I don’t know any­thing about that.”

A neigh­bour, who wished not to be iden­ti­fied, claimed he saw “a lot of clean­ing up tak­ing place at the time the fire broke out.”

“All I can say is that when the fire was go­ing on peo­ple were busy sweep­ing up and pick­ing up fire­works and starlight pa­per from the yard right next door to Michael and them. I al­so heard that the chil­dren were be­ing told to ‘shut up’ and don’t say any­thing but, in all this, I hope good sense pre­vails …that’s all I can say…I not go­ing to call any­body name.”

How­ev­er, Michael, in sim­i­lar words to his son, said he strong­ly be­lieves the chil­dren were the cause of the de­struc­tion. He said he was do­ing up­hol­stery jobs for about sev­en cus­tomers, in­clud­ing a pop­u­lar restau­rant and lounge in the Cou­va area.

“All the peo­ple’s chairs for the restau­rant and peo­ple’s couch sets burnt in the fire and Christ­mas is right around the cor­ner. This here is very un­for­tu­nate and sad…I sweat and toiled day and night for years to work for what I have and in min­utes every­thing gone.”

Jim­my said he and his wife spent ap­prox­i­mate­ly $150,000 to build their new home, which is an an­nexe to his fa­ther’s main house. He added that he al­so took out $17,000 worth of fur­ni­ture and ap­pli­ances to fur­nish his home.

“I am still pay­ing the in­stal­ments. My daugh­ter passed for a new school and her books and uni­form alone cost $3,000. I worked very hard to en­sure that my chil­dren have every­thing that they need­ed and more.”

Ram­narace said while they un­der­stand ac­ci­dents hap­pen there has been no apol­o­gy from the par­ents of the chil­dren.

“It just so strange that no one come and say they are sor­ry at least.”

His sen­ti­ments were al­so ex­pressed by both Jim­my and Michael.

Yes­ter­day, of­fi­cials from the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit of the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion as­sessed the scene. How­ev­er, be­fore they can pro­ceed fur­ther in as­sist­ing the vic­tims they will have to wait un­til fire pre­ven­tion of­fi­cers com­plete their in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Any­one wish­ing to help the fam­i­ly can call them at 318-4527, 487-2999 and/or 369-2319.