An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has launched an ur­gent in­ves­ti­ga­tion fol­low­ing a grim dis­cov­ery at the Cu­mu­to Ceme­tery yes­ter­day—af­ter two work­ers from a pop­u­lar fu­ner­al home were found il­le­gal­ly dis­pos­ing of 56 dead bod­ies.

The re­mains were re­port­ed­ly com­prised of 50 in­fants, four adult males and two adult fe­males.

One of the males and one of the fe­males bore signs that a post-mortem had been done.

All the adults, with the ex­cep­tion of one male, were found with iden­ti­fi­ca­tion tags.

Two sus­pects, aged 18 and 25, both of Bye Pass Road, Ari­ma, have been de­tained by po­lice.

The shock­ing in­ci­dent be­gan un­fold­ing around 10.10 am, when a gar­den­er liv­ing close to the ceme­tery was out test­ing his air ri­fle and ob­served the sus­pects dig­ging a grave.

En­quir­ing as to who was to be buried, as the ceme­tery’s care­tak­er had not been no­ti­fied, the sus­pects re­port­ed­ly told the gar­den­er they were “hus­tling” and had come to dis­pose of some chil­dren’s bod­ies.

As the gar­den­er walked to­wards the sus­pects, a van which had been idling near­by sped off.

The gar­den­er lat­er ac­com­pa­nied the sus­pects to the Cu­mu­to Po­lice Sta­tion and hand­ed them over to of­fi­cers.

The po­lice sta­tion is ap­prox­i­mate­ly a minute’s walk from the ceme­tery and bor­ders the small grave­yard.

Po­lice sources said that while be­ing ques­tioned, the sus­pects re­vealed they had been in­struct­ed by their em­ploy­er to dig a grave for a pau­per’s fu­ner­al.

A pau­per’s fu­ner­al is a gov­ern­ment-fund­ed bur­ial or cre­ma­tion for in­di­vid­u­als who can­not af­ford a tra­di­tion­al fu­ner­al. 

It is typ­i­cal­ly arranged when no one else can or will pay for the bur­ial, and it is of­ten han­dled by lo­cal fu­ner­al homes.

To qual­i­fy for a pau­per’s fu­ner­al, in­di­vid­u­als may need to meet cer­tain cri­te­ria, such as hav­ing un­claimed prop­er­ty or be­ing iden­ti­fied as in­di­gent. 

Com­ply­ing with the in­struc­tion, the sus­pects re­port­ed­ly told po­lice they had dis­posed of sev­er­al bod­ies, in­clu­sive of in­fants.

Of­fi­cers lat­er re­trieved the re­mains of 56 peo­ple from the grave, which mea­sured six feet by three feet.

When Sun­day Guardian vis­it­ed the ceme­tery, the grave re­mained open as flies buzzed.

The scent of rot­ting flesh per­vad­ed the air, whilst dis­card­ed la­tex gloves were seen in­side the grave, and a white cro­cus bag was thrown a short dis­tance away.

‘Trou­bling find’

Re­fer­ring to the dis­cov­ery as “deeply trou­bling,” Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion would be treat­ed with the high­est lev­el of pri­or­i­ty and over­sight.

In a re­lease via the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions De­part­ment, he stat­ed, “The na­ture of this dis­cov­ery is deeply trou­bling, and we un­der­stand the emo­tion­al im­pact it will have on fam­i­lies and the wider na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.”

He as­sured, “The TTPS is ap­proach­ing this mat­ter with ur­gency, sen­si­tiv­i­ty, and un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to un­cov­er­ing the truth.”

Even as he as­sured that, “Every ca­dav­er would be han­dled with dig­ni­ty and law­ful care,” Gue­var­ro warned.

“Any in­di­vid­ual or in­sti­tu­tion found to have vi­o­lat­ed that du­ty will be held ful­ly ac­count­able.”

The TTPS said pre­lim­i­nary in­di­ca­tions sug­gest that this may be a case in­volv­ing the un­law­ful dis­pos­al of un­claimed corpses.

The TTPS stressed that it is an ac­tive and de­vel­op­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion, with fur­ther foren­sic analy­sis to be con­duct­ed to de­ter­mine the ori­gin of the re­mains and any as­so­ci­at­ed breach­es of law and/or pro­ce­dure.

The CoP ac­knowl­edged the pub­lic’s con­cern and has ap­pealed for calm as in­ves­ti­ga­tors work to ver­i­fy the facts and es­tab­lish re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic who may have in­for­ma­tion rel­e­vant to this on­go­ing mat­ter are en­cour­aged to con­tact the TTPS through es­tab­lished chan­nels.

Gue­var­ro reaf­firmed, “The TTPS re­mains com­mit­ted to trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty, and the dig­ni­fied treat­ment of all hu­man re­mains.”

Mean­while, the ceme­tery’s care­tak­er, who would on­ly give his name as Carl, told Sun­day Guardian that this was not the first time that he had seen the sus­pects at the ceme­tery on at least three sep­a­rate oc­ca­sions in the past sev­er­al months.

“Last two weeks, I think these same fel­las say they bury... and I met them here dig­ging a hole to bury a la­dy from Lil Cau­ra. But this morn­ing when them two fel­las was here still, them is the two that came here... and they say this is not the first time they do this here.”

He ex­pressed con­cern that the ac­tiv­i­ties were il­le­gal, and agreed it was dis­re­spect­ful and not in keep­ing with the prin­ci­ples of hu­man dig­ni­ty.

The care­tak­er called on the au­thor­i­ties re­spon­si­ble for the ceme­tery to in­stall a new gate, as the cur­rent one is bro­ken, leav­ing the ceme­tery open and ac­ces­si­ble to all.