Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Rel­a­tives of "vil­lage sweet­heart" Mani­ram Kat­wa­roo are con­vinced he was mur­dered in the wake of re­ports that he was at­tacked by three men for ac­ci­den­tal­ly scratch­ing a car on his way home from a wed­ding.They want Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs to in­ter­vene be­cause they claim the po­lice are not do­ing enough to prop­er­ly in­ves­ti­gate the mat­ter.

Kat­wa­roo, 32, of Gand­hi Vil­lage, Debe was found ly­ing face up in a drain on No­vem­ber 7. He was last seen at a wed­ding a short dis­tance from his home.Yes­ter­day, Kat­wa­roo's fa­ther, Ram­nar­ine, said on the day of his son's fu­ner­al, sev­er­al peo­ple told him of his son's be­ing beat­en. "They told me my son was wheel­ing out the bike and he scratched a car. Three peo­ple start­ed to beat him and the po­lice were called in," Ra­ma­rine said.

He said the po­lice of­fered to take Kat­wa­roo home but vil­lagers told them that was not nec­es­sary as they would en­sure he reached home safe­ly. Ram­nar­ine said he be­lieves his son was pur­sued by the trio who be­gan rain­ing blows on him and pushed him in a drain."When I see my son's body there was a big cut be­hind his head. His face buss away and he had scrapes and cuts all over. His face looked like if some­body with a ring punched him," Ram­nar­ine said.

An au­top­sy by pathol­o­gist Dr Es­lyn Mc Don­ald-Bur­ris ruled that the of death was due to drown­ing and there was sus­pect­ed in­tox­i­ca­tion.Kat­wa­roo's moth­er, Mol­ly, said: "I want the po­lice to do a prop­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion. The first thing po­lice must do is go by the per­son who held the wed­ding and find out who was the own­er of the car he scratched and who beat him up."Se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers say foul play has not been ruled out.