This month marks the sev­enth death an­niver­sary of a won­der­ful fa­ther and hus­band. I would like to speak out to­day on be­half of all the vic­tims of vi­o­lence and in­hu­mane crimes whose prayers and pleas for jus­tice have gone unan­swered.My voice at times seems to be go­ing against a tidal wave of in­com­pe­tence in the jus­tice sys­tem in T&T.

On March 12, 2006, my fa­ther Paul Roops­ingh, a char­tered ac­coun­tant, was sav­age­ly mur­dered in the wee hours of the morn­ing. So heinous was the crime that we were not even al­lowed to view his body.Ap­prox­i­mate­ly one year lat­er, a sus­pect was ap­pre­hend­ed and has since been in­car­cer­at­ed.I have made sev­er­al at­tempts to find out why this mat­ter has not been brought to tri­al. I met with var­i­ous of­fi­cials and no one has been able to pro­vide a rea­son­able ex­pla­na­tion for the de­lay.

Every day I wake up hop­ing this is just a night­mare and I am an un­will­ing par­tic­i­pant.The pain of los­ing a loved one is dif­fi­cult to bear. The agony that fol­lows when one is not able to put clo­sure is a tragedy.

Our lives have not been the same since that day and we keep hop­ing that every month will be the mir­a­cle month when we will be in­formed of a tri­al date. Jus­tice de­layed is jus­tice de­nied and we are hop­ing that our fa­ther, a de­cent, law-abid­ing cit­i­zen, a won­der­ful hus­band and an ex­em­plary fa­ther will not just in the end be known sim­ply as Mur­der Vic­tim #71.

Sure­ly my fa­ther's death should not go in vain. The irony is that he sent us to the US be­cause of the crime in T&T. He stayed be­cause of his pri­vate prac­tice.Mem­o­ries of a beau­ti­ful soul and un­ful­filled dreams of times that nev­er came are all that we car­ry in our hearts now.Rest in peace, Dad.

Griev­ing daugh­ter of

Paul Roops­ingh