Girl, 14, on attempted murder charge over family poisoning

A 14-year-old girl was yesterday arraigned on an attempted murder charge for allegedly poisoning a family.

Police said that the girl, of Handsome Tree Mahaica, East Coast Demerara, was charged at the Mahaica Magistrate’s Court.

It is alleged that on February 9th, the child laced her family’s hassar curry supper with the deadly insecticide Monocrotophos. The girl, who was without legal counsel when she appeared before Magistrate Nyasha Hatmin, was subsequently remanded to a Juvenile Detention Centre until February 21.

Meanwhile, the three female victims of the poisoning were discharged from hospital yesterday, the two males remained patients.

Sukhdeo Dharamdat, 42; his son Chaitram Dharamdat, 17; two daughters Hemwattie Dharamdat, 15, Bhunwaneshari Dharamdat, 13; and his wife, Nandranie Sukhdeo, 40, were all admitted to the Georgetown Public Hospital Cooperation (GPHC) last Friday afternoon due to food poisoning. The family members had stated that they had a meal of hassar curry and experienced abdominal pain and vomiting afterwards.
They were initially treated at the Mahaicony Cottage Hospital but were transferred to the GPHC on Friday afternoon after their conditions worsened.

Speaking from her hospital bed before being discharged, Sukhdeo said, “doctors say me and the girls okay now and we can go home but them say me husband and son can’t go home yet but everybody gon live and be alright.”
The woman then broke down in tears and had to be consoled by her sister-in-law as she related that the teen was charged.

Giving a medical update on the men of the family, the woman’s sister in-law Ruby Singh said that she visited both her brother and the lad yesterday and they were recuperating well.

She added that while she could not go near them, since they were in the Critical Care section of the hospital, she was in communication with the son, who continuously smiled, waved his hand or gave her thumbs up signs.