Senior Reporter
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt
Tara Bridgemohan was a kind mother who loved to cook and spend time with her family and neighbours. That is how relatives and friends want the 75-year-old remembered after she was found dead while bound and gagged inside her bedroom following an apparent home invasion at her Hassanali Trace South, Barrackpore home.
Hours after her murder, relatives, neighbours and friends gathered quietly outside the house, embracing one another through tears as they shared stories about the pensioner they described as generous, welcoming and always willing to help.
Police said Bridgemohan was last seen alive around 4.30 pm on Friday after her daughter and son-in-law left home to tend to their bar in Monkey Town. When they returned shortly after 1 am yesterday, they found a downstairs room ransacked and a window on the side of the house broken. As they searched the two-storey home, they discovered more rooms in disarray before finding Bridgemohan lying face down on a bed in an upstairs bedroom.
Her hands were tied behind her back with black tie straps, and a red cloth covered her face and mouth.
Officers from the Barrackpore Police Station responded and said Bridgemohan was still showing signs of life when they arrived. They immediately rendered assistance until Emergency Medical Technicians reached the scene, but she was later pronounced dead.
Police believe robbery was the likely motive.
Speaking at the family home yesterday, Bridgemohan’s son-in-law, Indardath Ragoonanan, recalled the frightening moments that unfolded after he and his wife Mala returned from work.
“I left here around 4.30 and went down to the bar to assist my wife. Around 1 o’clock last night, when we closed up and came up the road, she parked over there, and I went and opened the door. As soon as we opened the door and I went inside, the whole place was ransacked. So then I realised that somebody came in,” Ragoonanan said.
Fearing the intruders might still be inside, Ragoonanan told his wife to stay back while he called the police. Two friends who had been at the bar arrived shortly afterwards to help them check the house.
His wife then became concerned about her mother, who had been upstairs.
“She said, ‘Boy, Mama upstairs. What to do?’ So I told her, ‘Well, they cannot go outside, because if it has somebody with a gun or a cutlass…’ So I called the police, and the police told us to stay. They said they’ll be here shortly.”
Ragoonanan eventually went upstairs while telling his wife to remain downstairs. He switched on the kitchen light after noticing that the upstairs was in darkness.
“When I went in, I saw her lying down. Her hands and feet were tied with tie straps. Her mouth was tied up with cloth and stuffed to stifle her. When I saw that, I kind of got scared. She, my wife, was coming, so I said, ‘Aye, don’t come.’ She said, ‘What happened?’ I said, ‘Girl, your mother died.’”
Ragoonanan said the killing had shaken his sense of security in what he had always considered a peaceful community. Although he described it as the first home invasion on the street, he recalled another recent violent attack elsewhere in the district and questioned whether criminals had been watching the family’s recently reopened bar.
He said increased police patrols were needed, adding that despite the State of Emergency, people continued to move about late at night.
“This is 12 years I’ve been living here, and we’ve never had this kind of problem. The neighbours are really friendly, and she always felt comfortable here. Even last night, I still had hope that when I went upstairs I’d find her alive, but that hope wasn’t much.”
Describing Bridgemohan, Ragoonanan said she welcomed everyone into her home and always put others before herself.
“She liked being around her family and her neighbours. She was a very kind-hearted person. If she had something, she could do without it and give it to somebody else. I came into this home as a stranger and was welcomed like family. I don’t know how much more I can say, but she will be missed dearly. What happened here is a tremendous loss.”
