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Thursday, July 10, 2025

Poisoned baby Salileen laid to rest

by

Radhica De Silva
1014 days ago
20220929
Sunil Ramlal performs the final funeral rites on his daughter Salileen during her funeral service at Boodoo’s Funeral  Chapel in Penal yesterday.

Sunil Ramlal performs the final funeral rites on his daughter Salileen during her funeral service at Boodoo’s Funeral Chapel in Penal yesterday.

RISHI RAGOONATH

 

The har­row­ing last mo­ments of ba­by Salileen Ram­sa­roop’s life, af­ter she was fed poi­son by a fe­male rel­a­tive, tugged at the hearts of mourn­ers yes­ter­day, as her great aunt ve­he­ment­ly de­nied she was aban­doned by her fa­ther Sunil Ram­lal.

Speak­ing at the ba­by’s fu­ner­al at Boodoo’s Fu­ner­al Chapel in Pe­nal, Salileen’s fa­ther Sunil wept as he watched her tiny body en­cased in the cof­fin.

Ma­ter­nal rel­a­tives of the ba­by did not at­tend the fu­ner­al ser­vice.

But while the fa­ther shared no words of com­fort or con­dem­na­tion for the woman who took his daugh­ter’s life, Sunil’s aunt Sav­it­ri De­ochan came to his de­fence, say­ing he had been ac­cused wrong­ful­ly of aban­don­ing his fam­i­ly.

Invit­ing mourn­ers to imag­ine the last mo­ments of Salileen’s life, De­ochan said in­stead of judg­ing the ba­by’s par­ents, peo­ple should let jus­tice take its course.

“It is re­al­ly sad to see a ba­by on a ta­ble with her mouth open, a life­less body and help­less, that is a sad thing. Our grief and sad­ness...To look at a ba­by ly­ing in a cof­fin. She didn’t get a chance. When that Malathion (in­sec­ti­cide) went down her throat ... Just pic­ture it,” she said, as mourn­ers wept.

De­ochan al­so point­ed to the broth­ers of ba­by Salileen, say­ing: “When you look at these two lit­tle boys, (name called) in po­lice sta­tion lock-up “

She said they could not pro­tect the boys from the ter­ri­ble tragedy.

“We could not hide it from them, they had ques­tions from home, from foren­sics and homi­cide. What we go do?” she added.

Say­ing she was fol­low­ing so­cial me­dia and had seen the ques­tions posed by the pub­lic, De­ochan said: “Peo­ple ask­ing where was the fa­ther. The big ques­tion is was he present? Yes, he is very present. He may not be 100 per cent per­fect but he is a good fa­ther. Maybe his words are few but he is not bad. We had many neg­a­tive com­ments. This dad nev­er aban­doned the chil­dren. This mom left him many times. He had a lot to face.”

She al­so claimed the child was nev­er COVID-pos­i­tive.

“I hold the med­ical cer­tifi­cate and it has noth­ing per­tain­ing to COVID,” she added.

De­ochan ex­plained that the ba­by had men­tal chal­lenges and had been hos­pi­talised for three weeks. She said af­ter the ba­by was dis­charged, she was tak­en away from the fa­ther.

Mean­while, rel­a­tive Ma­kee­sha Ju­goon, who de­liv­ered a brief eu­lo­gy, said ba­by Salileen was in a bet­ter place.

“It is tru­ly heart­break­ing that Salileen died be­fore get­ting a chance to live,” she said.

Fam­i­ly friend Ear­lon La Fou­cade al­so called on the pub­lic not to judge.

“I pray that what­ev­er the cause, Almighty God com­forts this fam­i­ly, es­pe­cial­ly the fa­ther and moth­er. We can­not judge. We do not know what the cir­cum­stances may be. On­ly God knows what took place,” he said.

Fol­low­ing the fu­ner­al ser­vice, the ba­by was laid to rest at the Batchya Ceme­tery.

Ba­by Salileen was de­clared dead at the Princes Town Hos­pi­tal last week. A nurse con­tact­ed the po­lice around 3.15 pm on Sep­tem­ber 21 af­ter the ba­by was tak­en in­to the fa­cil­i­ty un­re­spon­sive.

When po­lice ar­rived, a fe­male rel­a­tive told them she was at her par­ents’ New Grant home with the ba­by and a ten-year-old boy when the ba­by be­gan to cry un­con­trol­lably. She said she be­came frus­trat­ed and fed the ba­by Malathion in­sec­ti­cide us­ing a sy­ringe.

Po­lice re­cov­ered a sy­ringe, a ba­by bot­tle and a 250ml bot­tle with the mark­ings “Malathion” at the woman’s home.

Foren­sic pathol­o­gist Dr So­mu Gaju­la gave the cause of death as pul­monary oede­ma, pend­ing a tox­i­col­o­gy re­port.

Pul­monary oede­ma is a con­di­tion caused by too much flu­id in the lungs, which makes breath­ing dif­fi­cult.

Po­lice have since sub­mit­ted a file to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions. Charges are ex­pect­ed to be laid.


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