Kevon Felmine

Years of ill-feel­ings and heat­ed ar­gu­ments be­tween labour­er Ra­jen­dranath Khelawan and a male rel­a­tive end­ed in bit­ter tragedy on Sun­day night when he was stabbed to death dur­ing an ar­gu­ment at their Debe home.

Since leav­ing Khelawan, 59, bleed­ing on the ground of their kitchen the rel­a­tive has been on the run and up to last night no one had seen or heard from him.

Speak­ing to the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, Khelawan's sis­ter, Tara­ma­tee, said she was asleep at the fam­i­ly's home at Ram­rat­tan Ma­haraj Trace when around 10.30 pm she was awak­ened by calls from their 80-year-old moth­er, Bas­daye, who lives down­stairs with the men

As she walked in­to the kitchen, she said she was gripped with hor­ror at the sight of her broth­er ly­ing in blood.

With­in 15 min­utes, po­lice, led by ASP Sharon Coop­er, In­sp Steve Per­sad and Sgt Dale Ram­roop, re­spond­ed along with an am­bu­lance but Khelawan was al­ready dead.

An au­top­sy at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, yes­ter­day by foren­sic pathol­o­gist Dr Valery Alexan­drov showed Khelawan was stabbed sev­er­al times.

Re­call­ing the in­ci­dent, Tara­ma­tee said: "My mom was call­ing us to see what was go­ing on be­cause she heard the noise and saw blood. We rushed down but every­thing had hap­pened al­ready. We did not see or wit­ness any­thing. All we saw was blood and him sit­ting in the cor­ner."

She said for years there were con­stant ar­gu­ments be­tween the two men for mi­nor things and Khelawan had even threat­ened to chop his al­leged killer dur­ing a pre­vi­ous ar­gu­ment.

"I know they were al­ways ar­gu­ing but for lit­tle things. I did not know it would have end­ed like this. The de­ceased al­ways threat­ened to chop him (sus­pect) up," Tara­ma­tee said.

"I can't re­al­ly say what hap­pened. We were asleep when my mom got all fran­tic and we came down and saw what had al­ready hap­pened," she added.

As rel­a­tives cleaned the yard yes­ter­day prepar­ing for a wake ser­vice, Bas­daye sat on the porch with a pained ex­pres­sion.

Her grand­daugh­ter, who asked not to be iden­ti­fied, said Bas­daye was shak­en by Khelawan's death and still reel­ing from the ef­fects of a stroke she suf­fered years ago.

She said the fam­i­ly was thrown in­to shock as they nev­er be­lieved some­one shar­ing the same blood­line would com­mit such an act.

She said both men slept in bed­rooms a few feet apart and would con­stant­ly ar­gue about dif­fer­ent is­sue but no one be­lieved any one of those sit­u­a­tions could have end­ed in death. She said while Khelawan did not drink al­co­hol she be­lieved his killer might have had a few drinks.

"For years this thing tak­ing place with both of them. We know peo­ple ar­gue but it hurts more when your own blood is ar­gu­ing this way," she said.

Hair­dress­er shot

A Moru­ga hair­dress­er es­caped se­ri­ous in­jury on Sun­day night when she was shot fol­low­ing an ar­gu­ment with a group of men.

Nik­ki-Ann Marchan, 28, of Pe­nal Rock Road, Moru­ga, was treat­ed at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal (SFGH) for a gun­shot wound to her hand.

Po­lice said Marchan and friend, Ali­cia La For­tune, 31, were pas­sen­gers in her boyfriend Kevon La Fou­cade's car around 11.20 pm. La Fou­cade was dri­ving along the Palmer Street, Basse Terre Vil­lage, when he met a black Hyundai Ma­trix block­ing the in­ter­sec­tion to the Moru­ga Road.

Marchan and La Fou­cade came out the car and saw a man they knew speak­ing to four oth­er men.

They ap­proached the men and an ar­gu­ment start­ed. While re­turn­ing to their ve­hi­cles, sev­er­al gun­shots were fired and Marchan was hit in the hand. The cou­ple en­tered the ve­hi­cle and La Fou­cade drove to the Princes Town Dis­trict Health Fa­cil­i­ty, where Marchan was treat­ed and trans­ferred to the SFGH.

Sgt Far­rel and of­fi­cers from the Moru­ga Po­lice Sta­tion re­spond­ed and one of the sus­pects was ar­rest­ed. A search for the oth­er sus­pect is on­go­ing.