Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

"Sur­ren­der! Don't wait for the po­lice to find you. You must sur­ren­der now." These were the heart-wrench­ing words of Pres­by­ter­ian mourn­er Sybil Ram­lo­gan as she de­liv­ered a brief ad­dress at the fu­ner­al ser­vice of mur­dered plant in­spec­tor Nir­mal Baldeo. Scores of mourn­ers, hud­dled with their um­brel­las un­der stormy skies, trudged through slushy streets to say a fi­nal farewell to Baldeo, who was cre­mat­ed un­der Hin­du rites, three days af­ter his throat was slit at Dow Vil­lage, Cal­i­for­nia. De­spite the weath­er, speak­ers from the var­i­ous de­nom­i­na­tion­al bod­ies came out to pay their fi­nal re­spects. Ram­lo­gan, who rep­re­sent­ed the Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ty, prayed that Baldeo's moth­er See­ta will find peace.

"All of this coun­try is in mourn­ing. What a dread­ful act. What kind of per­son would do this? I want to call on that per­son to sur­ren­der and come forth. Don't wait for the po­lice to find you," Ram­lo­gan re­it­er­at­ed. See­ta was too weak and dis­ori­ent­ed to stand be­side Baldeo's cas­ket, which was wheeled un­der a white tent at the fam­i­ly's Lal­loo Trace, Clax­ton Bay home yes­ter­day. As fresh tears rolled down See­ta's face, she said qui­et­ly: "Thank you my sug­ar for the best 30 years of my life. I will al­ways love you my child." Baldeo's sis­ter Nir­mala wept as she gazed at Nir­mal's swollen body as he lay in the cas­ket. Nir­mala had made a spe­cial re­quest to per­form her broth­er's fi­nal rites even though it is not cus­tom­ary for Hin­du women to per­form the fi­nal rites.

For­mer pres­i­dent of the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion (IRO) Pun­dit Bramdeo Ma­haraj, of­fi­ci­at­ed at the ser­vice and praised Baldeo for be­ing a suc­cess­ful per­son. Mean­while, Broth­er Nazir Ali who rep­re­sent­ed the Mus­lim faith, al­so called on God's bless­ing to the griev­ing fam­i­ly. Ali said that Baldeo was al­ways a hum­ble man and was so suc­cess­ful that he rep­re­sent­ed his com­pa­ny both lo­cal­ly and abroad. Baldeo's cousin Sunil Lal­loo and un­cle Udeo Lal­loo as­sist­ed in the fu­ner­al rites. Baldeo's body was tak­en to the Mos­qui­to Creek Shore of Peace for cre­ma­tion. The young man was found ly­ing dead in the back seat of his car around 8 pm on Thurs­day. Po­lice have since ar­rest­ed a 30-year-old sus­pect in con­nec­tion with the crime. Po­lice be­lieve that Baldeo was killed fol­low­ing an ar­gu­ment.