The fam­i­lies of the Paria Div­ing tragedy vic­tims have slammed the de­ci­sion by the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry to ex­tend the date for the com­mis­sion’s de­liv­ery of the re­port as “an an­ger­ing, irk­some, un­wel­come, in­sult­ing and un­just de­vel­op­ment”.

In a joint state­ment yes­ter­day, Nicole Greenidge, moth­er of Yus­suf Hen­ry; Vanes­sa Kussie, wid­ow of Rishi Na­gas­sar; Cel­isha Kur­ban, wid­ow of Fyzal Kur­ban, and lone sur­vivor Christo­pher Boodram, said, “It has been five hun­dred and fifty (550) days since that hor­rid day which led to one of the dark­est mo­ments in our lives.”

The joint state­ment went fur­ther in say­ing, “While we un­der­stand the need for prop­er ap­proach­es and out­comes to be fol­lowed, we al­so have a burn­ing en­ti­tle­ment to jus­tice, ac­count­abil­i­ty, and con­se­quences, all of which we have been wait­ing on for 550 days.”

They crit­i­cised the slow de­liv­er­ance of jus­tice, adding, “While our lives have been dev­as­tat­ed be­yond words, those at Paria who are re­spon­si­ble for the mur­der of our loved ones re­main free, pam­pered, and pro­tect­ed by a sys­tem slow in de­liv­er­ing jus­tice.”

They al­so took aim at Paria Fu­el, stat­ing, “Not a soul from Paria or the State ap­pears con­cerned about our homes, chil­dren’s up­bring­ing, men­tal well-be­ing, or en­sur­ing jus­tice.”

In con­demn­ing the de­lay of the de­liv­ery of the re­port, the fam­i­lies said, “The un­der­tak­ing of re­spon­si­bil­i­ties as­so­ci­at­ed with this Com­mis­sion re­port can­not be seen as sim­ply a job, but rather viewed as a crit­i­cal com­po­nent in the de­liv­ery of jus­tice.