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.