Better Hope fisherman found dead with stab wounds

Bharrat Sugrim

A fisherman was found dead with stab wounds to the chest in his friend’s yard at Cummings Lodge on Sunday and two persons have since been held by police.

Bharrat Sugrim
Bharrat Sugrim
The house at Cummings Lodge, where Bharrat Sugrim was found dead.
The house at Cummings Lodge, where Bharrat Sugrim was found dead.

Bharrat Sugrim, 37, also known as “Lusty,” of Lot 28 Better Hope North, East Coast Demerara, was discovered dead in the yard of the Cummings Lodge property at approximately 2:30pm on Sunday, the police said in an official statement on the man’s death yesterday. A man and a woman are in custody, assisting with investigations, police added.

According to Sugrim’s brother-in-law, Khemraj, the family received a call at approximately 2pm from Sugrim’s friend, who informed them that he was “sleeping and he not waking up.” He called them to his home, Khemraj said, adding that when they arrived at the house they found Sugrim already stiff, laying face up in the yard. He said that Sugrim’s body appeared to have been washed off, since hardly any blood was seen where the body was. He said that he found that detail to be strange.

Additionally Khemraj told this newspaper that a blood-stained knife was recovered in the front of the yard in a clump of bushes.

Sugrim had gone to that friend’s house since Saturday around 11am to sell fish. Relatives thought Sugrim must have slept there as he had done in the past. When asked whether Sugrim had any problems with that friend or anyone else, Khemraj said no. However, the friend, they said, was the man in custody.

Sugrim is survived by a 14-year-old son.