Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

Hous­ing Min­is­ter and Ca­roni Cen­tral Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment David Lee is urg­ing so­cial me­dia com­men­ta­tors to avoid mak­ing prej­u­di­cial re­marks when dis­cussing trag­ic in­ci­dents in­volv­ing in­di­vid­u­als.

Lee made the ap­peal dur­ing an in­ter­faith ser­vice held in sup­port of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment coun­cil­lor Anil Bal­li­ram (CT­TRC), who was found in dis­tress at his Cou­va home on Sun­day af­ter a self-harm in­ci­dent.

Bal­li­ram was sub­se­quent­ly ad­mit­ted to the In­ten­sive Care Unit at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, where he re­mains in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion.

Sources in­di­cat­ed that he suf­fered oxy­gen de­pri­va­tion, with med­ical pro­fes­sion­als say­ing it may be too ear­ly to de­ter­mine the ex­tent of his re­cov­ery.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia af­ter the ser­vice, Lee said the in­ter­faith gath­er­ing was in­tend­ed as a ges­ture of prayer and sol­i­dar­i­ty.

“I have not re­ceived any of­fi­cial up­date on his con­di­tion, but to­day marks the third day...I re­main hope­ful that each pass­ing day is a pos­i­tive sign,” he said.

“This ser­vice is my way of pray­ing for Anil dur­ing this dif­fi­cult time. At times, I feel hope­less giv­en the sit­u­a­tion, but all we can do is keep him in our prayers.”

Lee added that the ini­tia­tive was al­so a ges­ture of grat­i­tude for Bal­li­ram’s as­sis­tance dur­ing his po­lit­i­cal jour­ney in Ca­roni Cen­tral.

Lee, how­ev­er, crit­i­cised the tone of some so­cial me­dia com­men­tary sur­round­ing the in­ci­dent.

“So­cial me­dia has not been kind to Mr Bal­li­ram. In fact, so­cial me­dia in gen­er­al can be very cru­el, es­pe­cial­ly when peo­ple are at their low­est,” he said.

“Peo­ple of­ten write hurt­ful things with­out know­ing what an in­di­vid­ual is go­ing through. We must ex­am­ine our­selves, be­cause what is done to oth­ers could one day be done to us or our loved ones.”

He ap­pealed for com­pas­sion and prayers for Bal­li­ram and his fam­i­ly.

The ser­vice fea­tured sev­er­al re­li­gious lead­ers in­clud­ing Imam Naz­im Ho­sein, Pun­dit Gajen­dra Ku­mar of the Lak­sh­mi Narayan Tem­ple, Bish­op Vic­tor Phillip, Rev­erend Elias Dick and Rev­erend Andy Gon­za­les.

Rev­erend Elias Dick called for greater re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in the use of so­cial me­dia, warn­ing against harm­ful com­men­tary dur­ing times of cri­sis.

He em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of prayer, uni­ty and emo­tion­al sup­port with­in com­mu­ni­ties.

“We must en­cour­age one an­oth­er and turn neg­a­tiv­i­ty in­to pos­i­tiv­i­ty,” he said. “At times, peo­ple are go­ing through deep strug­gles that oth­ers may not be aware of. We must be more com­pas­sion­ate in how we com­mu­ni­cate.”

The ser­vice con­clud­ed with prayers for Bal­li­ram’s re­cov­ery and strength for his fam­i­ly dur­ing what was de­scribed as a deeply dis­tress­ing time.