Three people who were taken into custody following the suspicious death of a two-month-old baby at Number 72 Village during last week were released following an exhumation yesterday and a post-mortem examination, which proved “inconclusive.”
The persons who were closely related to the now dead infant Dave Harripersaud were arrested a few days after the incident. According to reports, the baby died while a man inflicted a beating on his mother, Shirmattie Polliah, 32, while she held him in her arms.
One of the baby’s eight siblings, 14-year-old Raj, who works as a labourer at a fowl farm, said he returned home at 4 pm and saw his mother in the hammock with the baby lying on her stomach.
He said whenever he got home he would run to play with the baby and that day he asked his mother to wake the baby so he could play with him. But while his mother was handing him the baby they noticed his head “dropped back” and his mother started screaming.
Raj’s 18-year-old brother, Vijay who works as a tapir conductor, woke his father who was sleeping on the floor in their shack and told him that the baby was dead.
The child said he immediately left to collect money from his “boss man” so he could go to Canje to inform his father’s relatives about the baby’s death. His sister, 16-year-old Shelly who has been married for two years and lives a few houses away said when she got the news she ran over and she met her mother sitting on the floor, crying and holding the baby while her father was talking to the neighbours in the yard.
She said her parents had moved from their present location about two years ago and were living at Number 46 Village where they have a small shack. But she said they had problems with the neighbours and returned to Number 72 Village one month ago.
Raj said he was attending the Number 43 Primary School along with his two brothers – Suraj, 11, who also works at the fowl farm and ten-year-old Raju. But he cannot recall when last they went to school. The boy said his younger siblings, eight-year-old Devi, seven-year-old Kevin and three-year-old Kavita do not have birth certificates.
When this newspaper visited the children yesterday, the older boys were lighting the fireside to cook a meal of rice since their parents were not around.
When questioned what they would serve with the rice, Raj said he would get a “fowl” from his workplace and give his brother to cook. Suraj proudly gave this reporter his recipe for chicken curry and said he knows to cook other dishes as well.
Meanwhile, two female relatives from Skeldon who were visiting told this newspaper they would keep the younger children until their parents return home.
