A stormy marriage ended in disaster last evening when a man punched a hole in a cooking gas bottle and set himself alight at Sixth Street, Cummings Lodge, Greater Georgetown.
Dead is Eddie Maraj, a computer technician who operated at Maraj Building, King Street.
Relatives said the man and his wife, Nalini Maraj, had been married for ten years during which time Eddie Maraj constantly accused the woman of being unfaithful. Last evening, Maraj flew into a rage, during which he smashed household articles and then dramatically ended his life, destroying everything the family owned.
Speaking to Stabroek News last night Devika Singh, the dead man’s sister-in-law, who shared the home with them, recalled that around 5.30 yesterday afternoon Maraj returned home from work and immediately began quarrelling with her sister..
Singh said Maraj accused Nalini of not answering a call he placed to her telephone, a claim which the woman denied. Not satisfied, Singh said, Maraj marched upstairs, leaving them downstairs and locked the doors. He then began smashing glassware around the house. He also smashed a few window panes in the process and continued although his wife called out to him to stop, Singh said.
After a while, she said, Nalini telephoned the police but ranks did not respond immediately. As they waited, she said, they heard Maraj continuing to smash articles in the house.
Singh said the police eventually showed up around 7 pm and one of the officers took a cellular phone and rang Maraj, urging him to open the doors and stop behaving disorderly. But Singh said when Maraj realized that the police were there, he must have used the ice pick which he usually carried with him to punch the gas bottle and then lit a match and burned himself to death.
Singh said when the gas bottle exploded, the policemen at the scene tried desperately to break down the door to save Maraj, but by the time they got in he was already dead. The fire service was also summoned, but the firemen were only able to contain the blaze to Maraj’s house.
Singh told Stabroek News that for the ten years of their marriage Maraj and her sister were constantly at war; they had one child.
Singh said the house, which she and one of her daughters had shared with the couple was the only place they could have called home.
“Where are we going to go now all our stuff burn up?” the woman tearfully asked. A crowd had converged in front of the house when Stabroek News visited last evening, while police conducted their investigation and the firemen continued to put out the blaze.
