Father, sons charged with murdering Mahaica accountant

A father and his two sons were yesterday charged with the murder of Mahaica accountant Suresh Nandkishore, who was beaten to death on Tuesday after a long simmering land dispute.

Crime chief Leslie James gave the names of those charged as Sookdeo Dharamdat and his sons Ishwar and Chitram Dharamdat.

They were charged based on the advice of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

Nandkishore, 26, also known as ‘Ravo,’ was beaten to death while he was building a fence with his father and brother at Handsome Tree. A post-mortem examination found that Nandkishore died of trauma and haemorrhaging in the brain. There were also lacerations about his body.

His father, Gopaul Nandkishore, 52, who was also battered, is still fighting for his life in the Georgetown Public Hospital.

According to his uncle, Mukesh Nandkishore, Suresh’s body would be cremated tomorrow. Mean-while, his father Gopaul, who had been unconscious since the attack, started responding yesterday. Mukesh Nandkishore said he was relieved to see his brother’s eyes open when he visited him yesterday at the hospital.

Suresh Nandkishore
Suresh Nandkishore

“I told him that it’s me when he opened his eyes and he smiled at me,” he said.

However, his other nephew Parmanand Nandkishore, 31, who was also chopped in the midday attack, said his family remains in shock. “My dad is recovering but my brother is gone,” he said. Parmanand, who was lashed in his head several times and chopped on his right hand, said that after he was injured, he pretended to be dead.

After, the three men who had attacked them left, he said, he ran to his mother and told her what had happened.

“If I didn’t play dead they would have killed me like they kill my brother,” he stated. “They thought all of us dead. They came with the intention to kill my father and we,” he said.

Parmanand said his family is hoping that his father would “pull through” but they know that he will never be the same. “We lost a lot,” he stated.

His mother Gourie Nandkishore had told Stabroek News that when her son Parmanand got home, he was bleeding and battered. She said he told her “[The attacker] run and scramble me husband, and he try for fight he, but [the attacker] son tek a cutlass and broadside he pun he face, and he a punch um all over he body.”

Gourie said throughout the years, the attacker had pursued their land with great intensity. She said Gopaul had inherited 75 acres of land from his father and 25 acres were given to the attacker but he became greedy for more.

The woman said the matter went to Lands and Surveys and a survey proved that the land was Gopaul’s. However, she said the attacker pursued the issue in court but the court ruled in the Nandkishores’ favour.

After the ruling, she said, the attacker had told her that he was going to end her family. She said a complaint was filed at a police station against him after the threat and a restraining order was issued but the torment continued.

Gourie said had she told her husband that if they were going to go there to build a fence, they should be accompanied by the police. “But they ignore me and this is what happen,” she lamented.