Sto­ry by RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA (rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt)

Three mem­bers of a Bar­rack­pore fam­i­ly cur­rent­ly are ward­ed at the hos­pi­tal af­ter be­ing at­tacked by a rel­a­tive on Fri­day night.

Po­lice said around 8:30 pm, 35-year-old Sav­it­ri Lal­man, of Cun­jal Road Bar­rack­pore North, was sleep­ing at home when the 26-year-old sus­pect came in­to the bed­room and be­gan chop­ping her on the right hand, stom­ach and head.

Her fa­ther, 68-year-old Lal­man Jag­ger­nauth, heard her screams and rushed to her aid. How­ev­er, the sus­pect start­ed to chop Jag­ger­nauth too, wound­ing him on the right hand and left shoul­der. As the el­der­ly man fell to the ground, Lal­man's daugh­ter Reena Straughn in­ter­vened, and the sus­pect al­so be­gan rain­ing chops on her. She suf­fered in­juries to the left side of her head and left hand

Lal­man's 15-year-old son, Kevon, re­al­ized that the sus­pect in­tend­ed to maim every­one. Re­ports are he grabbed his one-year-old sis­ter Visha­la James and ran out of the house. He alert­ed the neigh­bours who called the po­lice.

The sus­pect then fled through a bushy area to the back of the house.

Led by Se­nior Supt Wayne Mo­hammed, of­fi­cers of the Bar­rack­pore and Princes Town po­lice quick­ly re­spond­ed. They lat­er found the sus­pect ly­ing on the ground in a bushy area off St Croix Ex­ten­sion in Bar­rack­pore. He ap­peared to have in­gest­ed a poi­so­nous sub­stance, but was still alive.

Po­lice did not find the weapon used in the at­tack.

The sus­pect was tak­en to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where he re­mains ward­ed in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion.

Lal­man, her fa­ther and daugh­ter were rushed to the Princes Town Health Fa­cil­i­ty where they were sta­bi­lized. They, too, were then trans­ferred to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Cpl Mo­hammed of the Bar­rack­pore po­lice sta­tion is con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.