Sweethearts Vijay `Kevin’ Arjune, 23, and Parbattie `Priya’ Mangoo, 19, who died in a suspected murder/suicide days before they were to be married, will likely have separate funerals.
Preparations for their last rites have begun following post-mortem examinations yesterday.
A police release yesterday said the autopsies were done by Government Pathologist Dr Nehaul Singh who gave their cause of death as “gunshot injury to the head at contact range”.
The couple died on Thursday night. They were found in their rental car along the East Bank Highway near Caledonia.
Arjune’s stepfather told Stabroek News yesterday that the young man will be cremated on Saturday. He noted that his stepson’s death was the second for the family within a year. He stated that the post-mortem examination was a depressing experience as he couldn’t imagine his stepson in such a way. Arjune said his stepson’s death was a tragedy that the family may never move past.
He said even more troubling was that the police had not handed over Arjune’s things to the family including over 150 pennyweights in silver and gold jewellery. “The police are saying that they didn’t find any of my son’s jewellery on him and we didn’t get the bag with his clothes…police told us they only found $13,000, but Kevin had just come back from Suriname. We know he must’ve had currency and things he bought,” the young man’s stepfather stated.
He added that this seemed to be insult to injury. “My wife would’ve wanted you know, some of his rings and thing to keep.”
He said his wife has been unable to sleep since the deaths and that he had spoken to the Mangroo family on Saturday but not since.
Arjune’s stepfather said he had hoped the young couple could be cremated together. He said, “I went to the post mortem and I heard they saying that they burying her on Wednesday, but on Saturday I had told them you know these two loved each other and they did this we should let them go together, but that isn’t going to happen I don’t think.”
Arjune’s mother was overwhelmed; she said that she had so many questions that would be left unanswered.
Mangroo’s family is also left with many unanswered questions. The young woman’s father stated that the family would be burying Priya on Wednesday. He said in relation to the post-mortem examination: “I couldn’t watch that. I can’t see them thing it hard for me”.
Mangroo’s father got upset when the issue of the gun and where Arjune may have gotten it from was raised. He stated that “I don’t know anything about that. We don’t have any guns, no unlicensed gun here.” Mangroo’s father told Stabroek News yesterday that the two families were not speaking and his concern had to be his wife and children who he said “are mourning and everyone has questions like usual.”
On Thursday the parents of the young couple came across the rental car the two were driving and discovered the bodies. The couple were to be married legally last week with a Hindu ceremony to follow sometime in November. Family tensions are believed to have been behind the tragedy.
