DISTRESSED: The distraught wife of Suresh Persaud (top), Lalita Ramoutar, after she returned from the Vigilance Police Station yesterday and two of Suresh Persaud’s four children (bottom)

Mystery over cremated trunk victims

Police probing the latest mystery killing in Buxton have, however, traced the car the two were burnt in to the missing cop and all indications are that the charred human remains found in the trunk of the torched vehicle are those of the two missing close friends, sources said yesterday.

Why they were on a freshly-ditched and dangerous road in Buxton where they were apparently waylaid and shot dead before being torched in the car in nearby Strathspey Tuesday night was deeply puzzling, relatives said yesterday.

All clues up to yesterday were that the men killed were Sundat Ramoutar, 30, of Owen Street, Kitty, a Constable in the Police Tactical Services Unit (TSU) and his neighbour, Suresh Persaud, 43, of Lot 1 Owen Street, Kitty, Georgetown, a fishmonger.

Suresh Persaud’s wife, Lalita, 45, told the Guyana Chronicle yesterday that her husband left home about 11:00 h Tuesday to do business at Mahaica, East Coast Demerara with his neighbour, Sundat Ramoutar, who was also a part-time taxi driver.

She said Persaud told her he would be home late that night but he did not turn up.

“He sold a car engine recently and he had a lot of money on his person, but when he left he said he was going to Mahaica to do business and would be back to cook dinner for us and I really don’t believe my husband was killed in that manner,” she cried yesterday afternoon.

Lalita cannot believe her husband is dead and cannot understand why he would have been in Strathspey, where the car was found on the railway embankment road.

The grieving woman said she went to the Vigilance Police Station, East Coast Demerara, yesterday and the police told her to be at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) today for the post mortem on Persaud’s remains.

After Persaud failed to return home on Tuesday night, Lalita began to fear the worst because it was unlike her husband to stay away from home, especially at nights, and she told her son to lodge a report at the Kitty Police Station later that night.

Persaud’s 20-year-old pregnant daughter, Ameena Ramoutar, told the Guyana Chronicle yesterday she strongly believes her father was murdered during a robbery because he had money on him when he left home Tuesday and would never have ventured into Buxton.

“He was never involved in any crimes or for that matter anything illegal which would suggest he had dealings in Buxton; he worked honestly at the wharf selling fish and I know my father was murdered,” she cried yesterday.

Persaud is survived by four children, his wife and scores of relatives.

She said Ramoutar borrowed his sister’s car over the weekend and left home Tuesday afternoon to go out with a friend to Mahaica, East Coast Demerara to meet someone to do business.

Reports said Ramoutar’s relatives received a telephone call about 20:00 h Tuesday that a car was set alight with its two occupants in it at Strathspey by gunmen.

Ramoutar lived with his wife and three-year-old daughter at Owen Street, Kitty.

They believe that Ramoutar and Persaud were on their way home when they were attacked and shot on Company Road at Buxton by gunmen who later drove the car to Strathspey where they torched it.

Company Road, the scene of several violent attacks on vehicles since armed and dangerous criminals made the village a safe haven in 2002, was freshly ditched Tuesday night and the men in the car were apparently cornered and shot when they were forced to stop at one of the ditches, reports said.

The police said that at about 23:00 h Tuesday at Strathspey, they found a burnt motor car with two corpses inside after reports of shooting in Buxton earlier that night.

Police yesterday said they were still investigating the bizarre killing.

Friday, October 21, 2005