Meena Bhim felt blood drip­ping on her from the floor­boards above her head and when she in­ves­ti­gat­ed up­stairs she made a ghast­ly dis­cov­ery.

Her broth­er Be­sham Bhim, 33, of Churkoo Vil­lage, Man­a­ham­bre Road was ly­ing in a pool of blood in the kitchen. He was bare­ly breath­ing with a gap­ing stab wound to the right side of his neck. The en­ve­lope with his salary, col­lect­ed hours ear­li­er lay emp­ty on the floor next to him.

For hours Meena tried to get the po­lice and an am­bu­lance to take her broth­er to the hos­pi­tal but when they ar­rived two hours lat­er, Be­sha was al­ready dead.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, an­oth­er sis­ter, Reena Ram­cha­ran, said she was con­vinced that her broth­er would have sur­vived if the am­bu­lance had re­spond­ed on time. Ram­cha­ran said she was at home around 8:30 am when her sis­ter Meena called her fran­ti­cal­ly say­ing some­one had stabbed Be­sham.

Ram­cha­ran said when they ar­rived, Be­sham was ly­ing on his side of the floor. Blood oozed from his neck and he was not con­scious.

“I could see him breath­ing. The para­medics told us do not move him.  The blood was leak­ing through the floor. We flagged down a pass­ing po­lice car and for one and a half hours, the of­fi­cer tried to get some­one to take Be­sham to the hos­pi­tal. Two hours passed and they could not find an am­bu­lance. When the po­lice fi­nal­ly came they said he was dead,” Ram­cha­ran re­called.

She said Be­sham worked at the Carousel Gas Sta­tion in Co­coyea as a gas sta­tion at­ten­dant. His nephew re­lieved him at work around 5.45 am and he re­turned home to rest.

Po­lice be­lieve Be­sham may have opened the door for his at­tack­er as there was no sign of forced en­try. There was no sign of a scuf­fle al­though his salary was miss­ing along with some monies he col­lect­ed af­ter sell­ing av­o­ca­dos.

Ram­cha­ran said Be­sham was a hard­work­ing broth­er who lived alone up­stairs while his el­der sis­ter Meena lived down­stairs. She said he was nev­er in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty and had a few friends who some­times came to his home.

Say­ing she had no idea who stabbed her broth­er, Ram­cha­ran said the mur­der was hor­ri­fy­ing and sad. She called for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the de­lays with the am­bu­lance.

Mean­while, coun­cil­lor for Corinth/Cedar Hill Shawn Prem­c­hand said this was not the first mur­der to hit the area.

He said he grew up with Bhim and nev­er knew him to en­gage in any­thing un­law­ful. Prem­c­hand said the Usine Ste Madeliene pond was be­ing used by mis­cre­ants.

“We have plead­ed with the au­thor­i­ties to set up a cam­era sys­tem in this area be­cause of crime. Once again crime has hit home. We do not have a prop­er am­bu­lance sys­tem and even the po­lice took a long while to re­spond to this mur­der. We are call­ing on the gov­ern­ment to put sys­tems in place to take charge of spi­ralling crime,” he added.

Po­lice say they are yet to es­tab­lish a mo­tive for the mur­der. Bhim had some mon­ey in his pants pock­et.