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Tuesday, July 15, 2025

Mom hacked to death by abusive ex-lover

by

Kevon Felmine
1749 days ago
20200930
Davica Kanchan, mother of Reshma Kanchan, is consoled by a relative yesterday after hearing her daughter had been killed by her former lover a short distance away from her Laltoo Trace, Debe home yesterday.

Davica Kanchan, mother of Reshma Kanchan, is consoled by a relative yesterday after hearing her daughter had been killed by her former lover a short distance away from her Laltoo Trace, Debe home yesterday.

Rishi Ragoonatth

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter months of be­ing stalked, threat­ened and bru­talised, Pe­nal moth­er Resh­ma Kan­chan met a hor­rif­ic death via the cut­lass of a for­mer lover yes­ter­day.

With sup­port for her two chil­dren hard the come by, the 25-year-old clean­er left her Lal­too Trace Ex­ten­sion home for her Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme job at a school in Debe just be­fore 9 am. But as she walked along the road, the man sprung on her, chop­ping her hand, face and neck. So se­vere was the at­tack that he al­most sev­ered her neck. Kan­chan died in a neigh­bour’s dri­ve­way while the man drove off in a black Nis­san Wingroad.

Vil­lager Heera­man Jaglal said the man lat­er crashed in­to a bin out­side the Si­mon Say Chi­nese restau­rant and the tyre blew out. Po­lice said it ap­peared the sus­pect, an elec­tri­cian from Siparia, slit his neck as he drove off.

Jaglal said he took the man to the side of the road as he bled pro­fuse­ly from his neck. Jaglal said a rel­a­tive came and wrapped the man’s neck with a T-shirt un­til an am­bu­lance took him to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. He un­der­went treat­ment and re­mained un­der po­lice guard last night.

As Kan­chan’s body lay on the hot as­phalt, her daugh­ters Shiv­ani, five and Caris­sa, two, walked around the yard, un­aware of the pain their rel­a­tives were ex­pe­ri­enc­ing in their home.

The scene of the domestic dispute which led to Reshma Kanchan's death, this morning. (Image: KEVON FELMINE)

The scene of the domestic dispute which led to Reshma Kanchan's death, this morning. (Image: KEVON FELMINE)

“Bring back my daugh­ter please,” Davi­ca Kan­chan shout­ed as she sat in front her tem­ple in the front yard.

Davi­ca re­called that the fam­i­ly made sev­er­al re­ports of do­mes­tic abuse to Pe­nal po­lice but the of­fi­cers would on­ly warn the man.

“The man kept call­ing her since five o’clock this morn­ing. She told the man, ‘I am busy, I have to go to work. Do not call me. Do not ha­rass me.’ She told the man that the child did not have pam­pers, and that is the last words I heard her say as she walked out the road,” Davi­ca told Guardian Me­dia.

“From what I heard, he was wait­ing down the road for her. All I know is that my sis­ter-in-law called this morn­ing and asked if every­thing OK.”

With the chil­dren asleep, Davi­ca thought all was well un­til po­lice vis­it­ed their home and de­liv­ered the news that some­one had cut her daugh­ter’s throat and she died on the spot.

Kan­chan and the man shared a sev­en-year re­la­tion­ship filled with abuse and tor­ment. Five months ago, Kan­chan de­cid­ed she had had enough and she and her girls moved on with their lives. How­ev­er, the man went to their home sev­er­al times and al­leged­ly abused her. Davi­ca claimed re­cent­ly, he took a cut­lass from the back of his pick-up truck, placed it on the front seat and told Kan­chan he would slit her throat.

“Sun­day morn­ing, he came again and threat­ened her and me. We called the po­lice but they nev­er came. He told her that he would not al­low her to live her life, he would de­stroy her. He want­ed to make up, but she said ‘No,’ she could not live that kind of life any­more; the curs­ing and abuse.”

Davi­ca said the man lived in her house for five months and dur­ing that time, she al­leged­ly wit­nessed the abuse. When she and her younger daugh­ter Beena got in­volved, he abused them as well.

Beena said on Kan­chan’s birth­day in 2019, Kan­chan had one of the girls in her arms when the man be­gan hit­ting her.

“When we went to take the child, he hit my moth­er and I and we put him in court. We did not fur­ther the case be­cause she (Kan­chan) said she want­ed to make a liv­ing with him and she want­ed to try again, so we left the case right there,” Beena said.

The bru­tal killing took place me­tres away from where Prem­nath Ramkha­lawan stabbed his wife Aari­ka Bhim in the back of her car, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 100 me­tres from their Lal­too Trace home, in 2015. Bhim was hold­ing her then three-year-old daugh­ter at the time.

Reshma Kanchan was killed while on her way to work this morning.

Reshma Kanchan was killed while on her way to work this morning.

The child’s grand­fa­ther Pur­nanand Bhim found her, still clutch­ing her moth­er’s blood­ied body. Rel­a­tives found Ramkha­lawan’s body hang­ing at the back of their home.

The In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Re­source Net­work (IWRN) yes­ter­day ap­pealed to men to help oth­er men to un­learn tox­ic be­hav­iour. The IWRN said this would ul­ti­mate­ly help men to man­age their emo­tions, es­pe­cial­ly as it re­lates to re­jec­tion.

“This call comes on the heels of the trag­ic loss of yet an­oth­er woman, young Resh­ma Kan­chan, a moth­er of two, who was be­head­ed ear­li­er to­day, al­leged­ly by a close male rel­a­tive who al­so at­tempt­ed to take his own life,” the IR­WN said in a re­lease hours af­ter Kan­chan was chopped to death by an abu­sive ex-lover.

The IWRN said it was now a com­mon trend for men to harm them­selves af­ter mur­der­ing their spous­es, adding such a trend points to a larg­er so­ci­etal prob­lem in­volv­ing learnt be­hav­iour that breathes tox­i­c­i­ty and nar­cis­sism over pro­longed pe­ri­ods.

“The nar­ra­tive of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence must change from be­ing re­ac­tive to proac­tive, as is­sues which ig­nite do­mes­tic vi­o­lence would al­ways be present in fam­i­lies. How­ev­er, as a coun­try, we have a moral re­spon­si­bil­i­ty as State and civ­il so­ci­ety, to col­lec­tive­ly de­vel­op ef­fec­tive and sus­tain­able strate­gies,” it said.

“Whilst the IWRN fa­cil­i­tates cus­tomised types of ac­tiv­i­ties for men, it is in­suf­fi­cient and would demon­strate min­i­mal progress un­less and un­til male pro­fes­sion­als in this coun­try com­mit to en­gag­ing with men to help in un­learn­ing tox­ic be­hav­iour. This process must be­gin by not ob­jec­ti­fy­ing women which is one of the ma­jor stum­bling blocks that have been im­ped­ing the mind­set of men for years.”

The IWRN asked that all do­mes­tic vi­o­lence vic­tims (both male and fe­male) re­port all in­ci­dents to its hot­line at 795-9531, the Gen­der-Based Vi­o­lence Unit at 999 or the Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Hot­line at 800-SAVE.

Crime Scene Investigation, CSI, at the scene on Laltoo Trace, Debe where Reshma Kanchan chopped to death yesterday

Crime Scene Investigation, CSI, at the scene on Laltoo Trace, Debe where Reshma Kanchan chopped to death yesterday

Rishi Ragoonath

• Pol­ly Ann Chu­niesingh, 31

She was stran­gled along with her broth­er Dami­an and un­cle Randy, al­leged­ly by her ex-lover on Jan­u­ary 6.

• Jezelle Phillip-Fournil­li­er, 48

A prin­ci­pal at Ba­by’s Pre-School in Port-of-Spain, she was stabbed to death out­side a day­care by her 43-year-old es­tranged lover on Jan­u­ary 6

• Gabriel­la Dubar­ry, 28

The moth­er of one was shot dead by an es­tranged lover who stormed her par­ent’s Av­o­cat Vil­lage home on Jan­u­ary 8.

• Naiee Singh, 31

A moth­er of one, her hus­band Roger Singh shot her in her head out­side the Ram­s­ingh Build­ing in Cou­va on Jan­u­ary 27. He then shot him­self.

• Tri­cia Ram­saran, 37

She was beat­en and stran­gled to death by a man she lived with in Bar­rack­pore. The 50-year-old man then walked in­to the po­lice sta­tion and con­fessed on June 9.

• Adan­na Sta­cy Dick, 36

Dick was on her way to re­port do­mes­tic abuse at the hands of a for­mer lover when the man am­bushed her at a bus shed in Clax­ton Bay and stabbed her to death on June 30.

• Ve­ra Go­la­bie, 26

A moth­er of three, her throat was slit and she was stabbed sev­er­al times by a Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice con­sta­ble at her home in Matu­ra on Ju­ly 29.

• Sher­ian Hug­gins, 29

Hug­gins was chopped to death by her hus­band Kevon “LA” Har­ris at their Laven­tille home on Sep­tem­ber 2. Har­ris was lat­er found hang­ing from a tree at Wood­ford Square, Port-of-Spain.

• Joan­na Di­az Sanchez, 33

A Venezue­lan, she was beat­en to death. Her boyfriend dumped her in a cesspit be­hind his home in Preysal, Cou­va. She was found on Sep­tem­ber 3.


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