Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Na­dia Per­sad suf­fered the hor­ror of her moth­er's death when she too was killed by a car al­most on the same spot where her moth­er died two months ago. The ac­ci­dents oc­curred 72 days apart out­side Per­sad's home at Rochard Road, Bar­rack­pore. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said Per­sad, 26, was crushed from her waist down when a car pinned her against the back of her fa­ther's SUV around 3.20 pm on Wednes­day.

She was try­ing to take out a tank of gas from the back of the SUV when a Nis­san Sun­ny, dri­ven by a 58-year-old man, slammed in­to her. Po­lice said the dri­ver was head­ing south along Rochard Road when, on reach­ing Ramsabad Trace, he lost con­trol. He told po­lice he suf­fered a black­out and did not re­alise he had struck Per­sad un­til he saw her man­gled body on the ground.

She was gasp­ing for breath. Her fa­ther, Bas­deo, rushed to her aid but re­coiled in hor­ror as he saw his daugh­ter ly­ing al­most on the same spot where his wife, Ce­les­tine, died on June 24. Per­sad was tak­en to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where she was pro­nounced dead. Bas­deo said Per­sad lived in New York but re­turned home in June for her moth­er's fu­ner­al. Like Per­sad, Ce­les­tine was killed af­ter a run­away car ploughed in­to her.

Bas­deo said Ce­les­tine's death hap­pened on the day they cel­e­brat­ed their 28th wed­ding an­niver­sary. "She was my sup­port. She took over the busi­ness and she did all the pa­per­work. She made sure I ate. When my wife died I was get­ting no sleep but be­cause of Na­dia I start­ed to sleep a lit­tle," Bas­deo said.

He ex­plained that on Wednes­day he told Per­sad she could re­turn to the Unit­ed States. He said she was the sole bread­win­ner and took care of her sib­lings, Bri­an, 20, and Pinky, 21, who both lived with her in New York. "The night be­fore I had a dream from my wife. I want­ed my daugh­ter to leave Trinidad but time ran out. She was al­so killed," Bas­deo said. He blamed speed for the deaths, say­ing it was time for dri­vers to slow down.

Po­lice said the ac­ci­dents were not re­lat­ed and it was a co­in­ci­dence Per­sad was killed un­der the same cir­cum­stances as her moth­er. How­ev­er, su­per­sti­tious res­i­dents of Bar­rack­pore be­lieve evil forces were at work. "That spot jinx. They need some se­ri­ous prayers there be­cause apart from the ac­ci­dents, a man was mur­dered there," one res­i­dent said. An au­top­sy will be done on Per­sad's body to­day at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre. Bar­rack­pore Po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.