Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

The fam­i­ly of a prison of­fi­cer is liv­ing in fear fol­low­ing a dead­ly rob­bery at their home on Car­ni­val Mon­day in which the of­fi­cer’s fa­ther was shot in the head and killed. 

The or­deal that claimed the life of 62-year-old re­tiree Suresh Ram­sumair last­ed about ten min­utes, but his wife Ja­so­dra said their lives will for­ev­er be shat­tered from that night. 

Po­lice said when the cou­ple re­turned to their Pe­nal home in their car around 10.30 pm, along with their 42-year-old son, three ban­dits, armed with a cut­lass and firearm, had been ly­ing in wait for them and pounced when they ar­rived. Their son was tied up and beat­en.

Re­call­ing the or­deal, Ram­sumair’s wid­ow, said her hus­band begged them to stop beat­ing their son be­cause he was not well. In­stead, they were all forced up­stairs to the house where the ter­ror con­tin­ued. 

Po­lice said the ban­dits asked for the cou­ple’s oth­er son, who is a prison of­fi­cer as well as a gun and mon­ey. 

Ja­so­dra said they in­formed the in­trud­ers they didn’t own a gun and their prison of­fi­cer’s son did not live there.

Fight­ing to hold back tears, Ja­so­dra re­called how the ban­dits placed a pil­low over her head and put the gun against it.

“They want­ed to shoot me first and I tell them my chest re­al hurt­ing.” She said they al­so threat­ened to shoot the fam­i­ly’s pet cat. The sus­pects then stole their mon­ey.  As the men were leav­ing, she said, the gun­man shot her hus­band in the head. 

“He dead in not even less than a minute and that was it.”

She said the po­lice have been giv­ing the fam­i­ly a lot of sup­port, but they are trau­ma­tised.

“Of course, I am fright­ened, re­al fright­ened,” said Ja­so­dra, who added that her son, the prison of­fi­cer, has not been at­tend­ing his fa­ther’s wake for se­cu­ri­ty rea­sons.

The wid­ow said she and her hus­band had been mar­ried for 44 years and lived in a safe neigh­bour­hood.

“I wish I could just leave and don’t ever come back with my whole fam­i­ly. I nev­er ex­pect­ed this. We liv­ing here about 48 years. First time in my life ever some­thing like this hap­pened.”

‘Dark days ahead’

Mean­while, the Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Ger­ard Gor­don ex­pressed con­do­lences to the Ram­sumair fam­i­ly. He added the as­so­ci­a­tion was not sat­is­fied with the State’s re­sponse to of­fi­cers’ con­cerns for their safe­ty and their fam­i­lies.

“This, this whole sit­u­a­tion is high­ly un­for­tu­nate and for us, it con­tin­ues to cast a very dim light on the re­sponse of the State in treat­ing with and meet­ing with and con­vey­ing to the crim­i­nal el­e­ments that these sorts of at­tacks and mur­ders will not be tol­er­at­ed.”

He claimed that when Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi was the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, there were sup­posed to be amend­ments to leg­is­la­tion to in­crease the penal­ties for at­tacks on of­fi­cers and their fam­i­lies.

He said prison of­fi­cers were yet to see this ma­te­ri­alise.

Gor­don said the sit­u­a­tion was dis­cour­ag­ing, hurt­ful and trau­mat­ic for prison of­fi­cers. He said even more dis­heart­en­ing were in­sen­si­tive com­ments from mem­bers of the pub­lic.

“You re­alise on some lev­el it would ap­pear that our lives don’t mat­ter and now we see the lives of our fam­i­lies...It seems that not even our fam­i­lies’ lives mat­ter.”

Gor­don said that one prison of­fi­cer was stay­ing in the prison dor­mi­to­ry while an­oth­er had to be re­lo­cat­ed and the as­so­ci­a­tion was pay­ing his rent be­cause of threats to their lives.

He said prison of­fi­cers “have some dark days ahead.”

No one has been ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with Ram­sumair’s mur­der.