Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Two months af­ter be­ing set on fire, moth­er of one An­drea Badree is still in crit­i­cal con­di­tion at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. Badree's com­mon-law hus­band Har­ryper­sad Singh, 30, who is ac­cused of the crime, has been charged with at­tempt­ed mur­der. Singh, of Dum­fries Road, Her­mitage Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do, was once again re­fused bail yes­ter­day when he reap­peared be­fore act­ing deputy Chief Mag­is­trate Ra­jen­dra Ram­bachan.

Singh, the fa­ther of one, is al­leged to have com­mit­ted the act af­ter an in­ci­dent at their home on March 3. Badree was al­leged­ly doused with a flam­ma­ble sub­stance and then set ablaze. Cpl Ram­lo­gan of the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Sta­tion laid the charge.

San Fer­nan­do First Court pros­e­cu­tor Ram­dath Phillip re­newed his ob­jec­tion to Singh be­ing grant­ed bail yes­ter­day. He said Badree re­mains in crit­i­cal con­di­tion. Singh's at­tor­ney, Cedric Nep­tune, asked that Ram­dath pro­vide doc­u­men­tary ev­i­dence to es­tab­lish Badree's present con­di­tion. The mag­is­trate then said: "If (the pros­e­cu­tion) is cor­rect, then it is of grave con­cern. If she is in crit­i­cal con­di­tion for two months then that must be of con­cern. I will not grant bail." Phillip passed around copies of pho­tographs of the in­jured Badree to the court and to the de­fence at­tor­ney along with a med­ical cer­tifi­cate.

He said the pho­tos were not re­lat­ed to the case but to as­sist de­fence at­tor­ney Nep­tune. Ram­bachan, af­ter view­ing the doc­u­ments, said: "In the cir­cum­stances I will refuse bail. The doc­tors are now wor­ry­ing about in­fec­tions af­ter so many (skin) grafts. No bail, no way. I main­tain my re­fusal." He ad­vised Singh of his right to ap­ply to a judge in cham­bers for bail. "I am cer­tain­ly not grant­i­ng bail un­til there is some prog­no­sis of im­prove­ment," Ram­bachan added. Singh will reap­pear in court on June 18.