Sleeping couple hacked to death

It might be a new year, but the onslaught of murders continued on New Year’s Day after a Borde Narve, Princes Town, couple was hacked to death at their home. Police, however, only made the gory discovery of the bodies of 50-year-old tradesman Omardath Deokienanan and his common-law wife Sharon Bahadoor, 47, outside their Cemetery Trace home yesterday morning. 

Shock and despair was etched on relatives’ faces yesterday as they called on the Government to enforce capital punishment this year, in order to deter criminals. 

Investigators suspect that Deokienanan and Bahadoor were asleep in their one-room shack at the edge of the Inverness Public Cemetery around 10 pm when two men armed with cutlasses entered. The men hog-tied the couple, beat them, then hacked them to death before dumping their bodies outside their home. The attackers then made their getaway in Bahadoor’s Nissan B-14. Relatives checking on the couple hours later, found Deokienanan but could not find Bahadoor anywhere.

It was not until police, led by ASP Zamsheed Mohammed, Insp Don Gajhadar and Insp Sean Dhilpaul, combed the area surrounding the cemetery yesterday that Bahadoor’s body was found. Speaking to the T&T Guardian yesterday, Bahadoor’s nephew, Richard Seeram, said villagers only realised something was wrong when they saw his aunt’s car crash into a Nissan B13 while speeding along the Cipero Road. 

“We were up the road by some of my family around 10 pm and when I reached home, my partner called me and told me my aunt’s car crashed up the road,” he said. “He saw the accident and he said two fellas jumped out from the car and ran. He thought it had to be somebody stole the car. “I went across to their home and I saw the house open, the lights on and when I called, nobody answered. I told my brother that we should go into the house and when we reached the door, I saw a whole pool of blood in front.”

Seeram said they began to panic on seeing the bloody mess in the house. “I said something was wrong and we walked around the house to see if they were beaten and tied but we did not see anybody...I told my brother that all we could do was call the police,” he said. “It was afterwards, around 12 am, they found him at the side of his tank. They chopped him on his head and his two hands were tied together.

“Later on this morning, they found my aunt’s body in the bushes near a downs tree. It was like she tried to run away but she collapsed and they chopped her right there.” Though unsure, police suspect that robbery might be the motive for the killing. Relatives, however, believe the killers came for blood.

“I don’t feel it was the car they wanted, those men came to kill them. At the end of the day, if they wanted the car, they did not have to kill them. The way they chopped this man in his head, I believe they actually came to kill them,” Seeram said. Bahadoor’s cousin, Bernadine Seeram, said the couple lived humble lives and did not have any enemies. “They used to drink before but they stopped that a year now. They even went to AA meetings. They don’t really meddle with anybody,” she said.

Deokienanan’s sister, Indra Ramjass, told the T&T Guardian that the couple had an argument with neighbours recently, but she was unsure whether that caused the killings. For her 78-year-old mother, Daragiah Deokienanan, the news was too much to bear as Omardath was the third of her children to die. “One drown, one died from diabetes and now he come and get murdered,” she said as she tried to fight her tears. 

Police are yet to arrest any suspects but have impounded Bahadoor’s car at the San Fernando Police Station for forensic testing.