A father and son are currently on trial before Justice Navindra Singh and a 12-member jury for the fatal beating of their neighbour which is alleged to have stemmed from a dispute over land.
Following the empanelment of their case yesterday morning at the High Court in Georgetown, Sukhdeo Dharamdat and his son Ishwar Dharamdat pleaded not guilty to the capital indictment which stated that they murdered Suresh Nandkishore on February 3rd, 2015 at Handsome Tree Mahaica, East Coast Demerara.
One of Dharamdat’s other sons—Chaitram Dharamdat, had also been arrested for the murder. He was, however, among the more than a dozen prisoners who perished in the 2017 fire set by another inmate at the Camp Street Prison.
Testifying yesterday was brother of the deceased, Parmanand Nandkishore, who recalled accompanying his father Gopaul Nandkishore and brother on the day in question to their Handsome Tree land where they had gone to repair a fence.
According to Nandkishore, the Dharamdats had become enraged after the portion of disputed land was awarded to his father following a lengthy court trial.
He said that while preparing to construct the fence that day, Sukhdeo and his sons confronted them, enquiring what they were doing on the land, to which they responded that they were about to build a fence.
He said that there was initially no reaction from the men who indicated that they did not want any trouble. Soon after, however, Nandkishore said that both father and sons then started arguing with them.
According to the young man, it was at this point that his father suggested that he and his brother leave the land, when suddenly Sukhdeo and his sons began unleashing blows on himself, father and brother.
The witness said that the wooden posts and cutlass he, his father and sibling had gone with to the land to do their work that day, were among the implements used by the Dharamdats to inflict injuries they would later sustain.
He told the court that it was Ishwar who first hit his now-dead brother and as his (Parmanand’s) father was going to the brother’s rescue, both Sukhdeo and Ishwar turn their attention towards him hitting the father to the left side of his head with a piece of wood.
Nandkishore said that the men also attacked and chopped them with a cutlass.
He said he was chopped several times—once above the right eye, to the outer part of his right hand as he attempted to bar the chops and once across four fingers in the palm of his right hand. He displayed to the court the scars which he said he sustained.
The witness said that so unbearable were the blows being inflicted on him, that he decided to lay on the ground with his eyes closed, pretending to be dead, in a bid to have the men cease their brutal attack.
Just as he thought they were in retreat mode, however, Nandkishore said he heard Chaitram saying “all a dem gotta to dead, or else we going to jail.”
The witness told the court that upon hearing these words, he got up and made a dash for his life. He said that the men were subsequently able to catch up with him and dealt him more blows, but he eventually managed to escape.
According to Parmanand, by the end of the almost 30-minute ordeal, his father had been left lying face-up in a nearby trench, while his brother lay motionless on the land. The latter would succumb to his injuries a day later.
Further, he said that while his father survived the attack, he has been left with permanent head/ brain-injury owing to the beating he sustained to his head.
Stating that his family, (the Nandkishores) had assisted in transporting the entire Dharamdat family to the hospital after they all suffered food poisoning in 2012, the witness said he sought to enquire from Sukhdeo and his sons the reason for their attack.
In response, he said Ishwar told him that neither he nor his family had ever asked for any assistance from them, (the Nandkishores).
The trial continues this morning at 9.
Representing the accused are attorneys Alanna Lall, Brandon De Santos and Pamela De Santos.
Meanwhile, the state’s case is being led by Prosecutor Tuanna Hardy, in association with Abigail Gibbs and Teriq Mohammed.
A 26-year-old Chartered Accountant at the time of death, Suresh Nandkishore, also known as ‘Ravo,’ was said to have died of trauma and haemorrhaging in the brain.
