RALPH BAN­WARIE

Al­most 15 min­utes af­ter po­lice re­moved the body of a man found hang­ing in the garage of his home, the house was de­stroyed by fire.

Po­lice said Nir­mal “Tow­er” Ma­haraj, 54 , who lived alone and was a truck dri­ver of Bark­er Trace , Coalmine, San­gre Grande, was found hang­ing from a rope by his younger broth­er, Di­nash, on Wednes­day

Di­nash, who lives down­stairs of the two sto­ry build­ing, told Guardian Me­dia he opened his front door around 6.15 am and saw his broth­er hang­ing from rope from the roof of their garage.

He said he called the po­lice

Po­lice of­fi­cers from San­gre Grande re­spond­ed. Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Ash­by Ram­per­sad viewed the body and or­dered it re­moved to the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal mor­tu­ary, pend­ing an au­top­sy at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James.

Di­nash said about 15 min­utes af­ter his broth­er’s body was re­moved, he saw smoke com­ing from the top floor of the house where his broth­er lived.

He said with­in min­utes the wood­en struc­ture went up in flames.

Neigh­bours and rel­a­tives at­tempt­ed to put out the fire by us­ing buck­ets and a gar­den hose be­fore fire ten­ders from the San­gre Grande Fire Sta­tion ar­rived.

How­ev­er the en­tire house was de­stroyed.

Fire of­fi­cers were able to pre­vent the fire from spread­ing to near­by hous­es. Di­nash es­ti­mat­ed loss­es to be around $200,000.

Rel­a­tives claimed Nir­mal had at­tempt­ed to take his own life a few years ago when he climbed to the top of TSTT tow­er at the cor­ner of George Street, in San­gre Grande but was saved by po­lice. From that time he was called “Tow­er.”

Po­lice have ruled out foul play in the death.

Di­nash is now ap­peal­ing to mem­bers of the pub­lic to as­sist him in what­ev­er way they can. He can be con­tact­ed at 315-2296 or 348 -1938.