It has been nineteen years since market vendor Deoraj Bipat was beaten to death at Bushy Park, East Bank Essequibo (EBE) and his family is still seeking answers and hoping for closure.
In a telephone interview with Sunday Stabroek, Bipat’s niece, Alicia Alli, said that despite the passage of time, the pain is still fresh.
To date, she said, the family is still unsure about what transpired leading up to Bipat death.
“It’s been 19 years. Everybody still thinks about him….I hope, if a miracle can happen and somebody can come forward and say they saw and they are willing to go forward as an eyewitness. It will be very great. At least we will know who did it and why they did it because he was a very nice person,” Alli said.
Five years after Bipat’s death, Alli explained, the police informed the family that they would be closing the investigation due to insufficient information. As a result, the case remains unsolved.
“They (police) said they are going to close the case because they don’t have any eyewitness that came forward and said anything. They didn’t even make an arrest, nothing. There is nothing we could have done. Everybody had different theories and nobody didn’t come forward really,” Alli added.
On August 1, 2001, Alli explained that the family had planned a trip to Splashmins Resort but the then 27-year-old Bipat, of Station Street, Leonora, West Coast Demerara, chose not to join.
Instead, she said, he went to one of his aunts, who operated a bar in the area. “He went there and he ran it [the bar] for couple hours and people said while he was there, anybody that was passing he was calling them for a drink,” Alli said.
After a few hours, Alli related, Bipat closed the bar and ventured to an Emancipation party at Bushy Park.
Later that evening, someone visited the family’s house and informed them that Bipat’s lifeless body was found on the roadway. He was allegedly beaten and left to die.
“He was beaten. He was beaten and thrown at the middle of the road. That’s what the eyewitness said. They ran him over. They ran him out on the road and they caught him and beat him,” Alli said.
Who beat him and why remain unknown.
Alli said eyewitnesses related to the family what happened but chose not to speak to the police. “We heard there were eyewitnesses. People came forward and say they saw. When the police went, everybody just disappear all of a sudden. I don’t know if they were threatened or what,” she noted.
An autopsy, according to Alli, showed that Bipat died as a result of head injuries. “His bones were broken. They disfigured him. You couldn’t recognise his face,” she noted.
Nothing was stolen from Bipat, who was wearing jewellery at the time of the attack.
In a Facebook post, Alli yesterday said that the country’s justice system failed Bipat and his family. “The incompetent justice system failed him and my family, we got no closure and to this date the heinous criminals are roaming the streets free as a bird,” the post read.
“Anyone who knew my mamoo can attest that he was a very jovial person, who we had too little time with. We mourn his death 19 years later as it happened yesterday. The murders escaped the corrupted Guyanese judicial system but would never escape god’s judgment,” her post added.
