RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

A Moru­ga man seen on video beat­ing and threat­en­ing a nine-year-old boy with a knife has been ar­rest­ed and charged with child cru­el­ty. The 43-year-old was tak­en in­to cus­tody by of­fi­cers of the Spe­cial Vic­tims Unit (SVU) and spent the week­end in po­lice cus­tody.

PC Kevin Craw­ford of the SVU laid the charge on Fri­day. The sus­pect is ex­pect­ed to ap­pear be­fore a mas­ter of the court to­mor­row.

Three chil­dren, aged five, sev­en, and nine, were re­moved from their home in Marac and placed in the cus­tody of the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty.

At 8:45 pm on Feb­ru­ary 11, a res­i­dent of Marac Vil­lage, Moru­ga, post­ed a three-minute and 20-sec­ond video of the abuse. In the video, the child screamed and plead­ed as the man pulled, shoved, hit, and cursed him on the road. The man raised a knife and threat­ened to stab the child mul­ti­ple times.

Of­fi­cers from the Moru­ga Po­lice Sta­tion, led by Asp Band­han and in­clud­ing Sgt Charles, act­ing Sgt Mungroo, South­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force, Cpl Ram­dass, and WPC Valen­tine of the SVU, ar­rest­ed the sus­pect at his home.

In No­vem­ber 2021, the chil­dren’s moth­er, Re­hana Jag­ger­nauth, was beat­en, stabbed, and stran­gled be­fore be­ing thrown in­to the Guaya­mare Riv­er, where she drowned. She was prepar­ing for her fa­ther’s 40-day prayer ser­vice when she was killed.