KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

While many fa­thers bask in the love and af­fec­tion of their fam­i­lies to­day, An­drew Per­sad faces an un­bear­able task—say­ing good­bye to his mur­dered daugh­ter, 15-year-old Ma­li­ni Per­sad.

DNA test­ing has con­firmed that the skele­tal re­mains found un­der a man­go tree on April 17 in a forest­ed area near KPA Trace, Bar­rack­pore, be­long to Ma­li­ni.

The fam­i­ly re­ceived the re­sults around mid­day on Fri­day, and Ma­li­ni’s body was re­leased to them short­ly af­ter.

“It is giv­ing us a sigh of re­lief that we could ac­tu­al­ly put her to rest and in­to the Lord’s hand for her to trav­el wher­ev­er she has to go spir­i­tu­al­ly,” Per­sad told Sun­day Guardian at his home yes­ter­day.

Af­ter near­ly two months of wait­ing, the fam­i­ly de­cid­ed not to de­lay the process any fur­ther. Ma­li­ni’s fu­ner­al will take place to­day. Her body will ar­rive at their Rochard Dou­glas Road home be­fore the 9 am ser­vice, af­ter which it will be tak­en to the Shore of Peace cre­ma­tion site at Mos­qui­to Creek, South Oropouche.

Per­sad re­called how Fa­ther’s Day once meant small but mean­ing­ful sur­pris­es from his daugh­ters. Now, it has be­come a painful re­minder of what he has lost.

“Noth­ing much re­al­ly, nor­mal lunch or some­thing. Some­times she would help make a card in school and bring it for me or what­ev­er the school had. You know, some­times they have things like, ‘draw some­thing for your fa­ther,’” Per­sad said as he fought to hold back tears.

Ma­li­ni, a Form Two stu­dent at AS­JA Girls’ Col­lege in Bar­rack­pore, was autis­tic and suf­fered from seizures. She went miss­ing on April 13. Four days lat­er, mem­bers of Hunters Search and Res­cue found her re­mains. Fam­i­ly mem­bers and in­ves­ti­ga­tors iden­ti­fied her by her cloth­ing. Au­thor­i­ties be­lieve she was sex­u­al­ly as­sault­ed.

CCTV footage showed Ma­li­ni leav­ing her home that morn­ing car­ry­ing sev­er­al bags. Lat­er, she was seen walk­ing with a man in the Mus­sarap Trace area.

Po­lice de­tained the sus­pect, 52-year-old Vin­od Ko­tai, in con­nec­tion with her dis­ap­pear­ance and death. How­ev­er, two days af­ter his ar­rest, Ko­tai was found dead by self-harm in a cell at the Bar­rack­pore Po­lice Sta­tion. He had re­port­ed­ly ad­mit­ted to be­ing one of the last peo­ple seen with Ma­li­ni.

Per­sad said he had ap­proached Na­pari­ma MP Dr Naren­dra Roop­nar­ine out of frus­tra­tion over the long wait for the DNA re­sults. Roop­nar­ine as­sured him that re­sults would come with­in two weeks. Per­sad said he was grate­ful that the fam­i­ly could now find clo­sure, even amid grief.

He added that the wider com­mu­ni­ty, which had ral­lied be­hind the fam­i­ly from the day Ma­li­ni dis­ap­peared, re­spond­ed pos­i­tive­ly to the news that her iden­ti­ty was con­firmed.

The fam­i­ly shared an up­date on Face­book and in­tend­ed to make a pub­lic an­nounce­ment via a mo­bile speak­er that evening.

“So far, every­body based on what is be­ing said on Face­book, they are hap­py to know that we are a fam­i­ly get­ting a re­prieve so we can put clo­sure to it.”

Still, Per­sad said his wife, Leela, and daugh­ter Suni­ta are strug­gling to cope. Though he tried to stay busy by go­ing to work, the pain al­ways greet­ed him at home.

“I try to deal with it ... you know ... like go­ing to work for eight hours, so it is a mind­set, think­ing it is ok, I left to go to work for eight hours so it is not re­al­ly in my mind but when I come back home, she was al­ways here to greet me and was al­ways say­ing ‘well dad­dy, you are home.’ So it is on­ly when I come back home, that the re­al­i­ty hits me that she is no longer here.”