Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

The dis­cov­ery of an 82-year-old man’s body in the Usine Ste Madeleine Pond yes­ter­day has left rel­a­tives and vil­lagers heart­bro­ken, as they strug­gled to com­pre­hend the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing his death.

Paras Bhai­wah, who lived with rel­a­tives at Sug­ar Road, Bronte, near San Fer­nan­do, had left home ear­li­er with­out their knowl­edge.

When he was dis­cov­ered miss­ing, in­quiries led to the dis­cov­ery of CCTV footage which showed him walk­ing along the road in the vil­lage some­time af­ter 4 am.

His son-in-law lat­er found his body float­ing in the pond, sev­er­al miles away from his home.

Scores of rel­a­tives and vil­lagers gath­ered at the scene yes­ter­day, com­fort­ing each oth­er, as they strug­gled to make sense of the tragedy.

Ques­tions lin­gered about how he end­ed up so far away from home and in the wa­ter. Dereck Rus­sell, who had known him since he was a child, said Bhai­wah was the sec­ond old­est res­i­dent in the com­mu­ni­ty, where he was loved and re­spect­ed. "He lives right next to my mom. You'll see him ly­ing around rock­ing in his ham­mock...I grew up as a child in front of him. He was like the vil­lage bar­ber. As a lil boy, he cut your hair and we got along very well, you know.

“Very nice, warm, lov­ing per­son, very, very car­ing per­son."

Rus­sell said he heard about the tragedy around 8:30 am, but said it was strange since Bhai­wah did not fre­quent the pond. "What caused him to be in a sit­u­a­tion like this, I don't know. I cu­ri­ous, just like every­body else."

He said last month Bhai­wah sur­vived a heart at­tack, but as far as he knew, he was not ail­ing. Bhai­wah’s rel­a­tives are await­ing the re­sults of an au­top­sy to de­ter­mine how he died and for the po­lice to de­ter­mine the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing his death.

How­ev­er, many gath­ered at the scene yes­ter­day did not ap­pear to sus­pect foul play. Ste Madeleine po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.