Neisha Cyleane Sankar’s mur­der by her hus­band Har­richar­ran Ram­sun­dar, who sub­se­quent­ly com­mit­ted sui­cide on Mon­day, is just one and sev­er­al sim­i­lar tragedies among bro­ken fam­i­lies. How­ev­er, Sin­gle Fa­thers’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Rhon­dall Fee­les be­lieves that pro­fes­sion­al and fam­i­ly in­ter­ven­tions should be ob­tained be­fore leav­ing a re­la­tion­ship.
Rel­a­tives said Sankar, 29, an em­ploy­ee of Re­pub­lic Bank, Siparia was con­tem­plat­ing leav­ing Ram­sun­dar and had spent last week­end away from their Phu­lo Dri­ve, Siparia home. When she re­turned around 6 am Mon­day to pre­pare their eight-year-old son for school, she was sav­age­ly hacked to death by the man fam­i­ly and neigh­bours de­scribed as qui­et. Ram­sun­dar was lat­er found hang­ing in the bush­es be­hind his home.
Ad­vis­ing cou­ples on how to steer clear of vi­o­lent sep­a­ra­tions, Fee­les said that peo­ple need to de­vel­op emo­tion­al in­tel­li­gence where they can view their part­ner’s per­spec­tive. Sug­gest­ing coun­selling to re­pair a re­la­tion­ship, he said that if sep­a­ra­tion seemed the best out­come, fam­i­ly and pro­fes­sion­al coun­sel­lors should as­sist in end­ing the re­la­tion­ship. A sud­den end brings about with­draw­al, which may prompt a hus­band or wife to re­act vi­o­lent­ly.
“Emo­tion­al in­tel­li­gence is some­thing that 99 per cent, I think, of us in Trinidad and To­ba­go do not have. We be­lieve that we are all emo­tion­al­ly put to­geth­er un­til we are put in­to emo­tion­al­ly-charged sit­u­a­tions. Any­body in Trinidad and To­ba­go now, a lot of the girl­friends and boyfriends, a lot of the hus­bands and wives, if they’re hon­est with them­selves, they’ll re­alise that they are caught in a num­ber of very ques­tion­able sce­nar­ios where some­body pelt a lash at some­body, some­body starts to fight, some­body start to quar­rel, some­body says some­thing they re­gret five min­utes af­ter. We don’t un­der­stand how to con­trol our emo­tions be­cause we think it is some­thing au­to­mat­i­cal­ly we get,” Fee­les said.
While the Na­tion­al Fam­i­ly Ser­vices is one or­gan­i­sa­tion charged with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to find am­i­ca­ble so­lu­tions to fam­i­ly is­sues, he said they were spread thin. He be­lieves that if the gov­ern­ment sup­plies the re­sources that are eq­ui­table for the big task the or­gan­i­sa­tion faces, they will be able to make an im­pact.
While Sankar’s neigh­bours could not say whether she was abused, a few of her col­leagues sus­pect­ed that she was be­cause of marks on her skin.

How­ev­er, that was sev­er­al years ago and it ap­peared that things got bet­ter. Coali­tion Against Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence (CADV)pres­i­dent Rober­ta Clarke said that while Sankar’s sto­ry is un­known, such do­mes­tic mur­ders are of­ten pre­ced­ed by many in­ci­dences of abuse.
Clarke said a 2018 study in T&T showed that one in three women who are in in­ti­mate part­ner­ships have ex­pe­ri­enced do­mes­tic vi­o­lence dur­ing their re­la­tion­ship. 
“That sug­gests that in Trinidad and To­ba­go 11,000 women are in sit­u­a­tions of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence. We know that this is a very preva­lent un­for­tu­nate fact,” Clarke said.
She said it was im­por­tant that the con­ver­sa­tion does not slip in­to spec­u­la­tion and vic­tim-blam­ing. She said women should look for signs of an abu­sive part­ner, which in­cludes jeal­ousy, con­stant ac­cu­sa­tions of in­fi­deli­ty, pos­ses­sive be­hav­iour, eas­i­ly an­gered, con­trol­ling and a sub­stance abuser among oth­ers.
“First time, last time,” is what CADV ad­vis­es women to adopt if ever they are abused by their part­ner.