Dead boy identified as orphanage resident
Vanished on night prior to death
By Andre Haynes
Stabroek News
December 28, 2002
The battered body of the young boy who was found in a drain at the Liliendaal Railway Embankment has been identified and relatives are seeking answers on his death.
The boy has been identified as 14-year-old Raheem Abdool of the Sad’r Boys Orphanage, who, according to an official of the institution, went missing sometime between the night of December 16 and the morning of December 17.
A press release from the Police Public Relations office confirmed that the body had been identified and that the police were investigating the circumstances surrounding the boy’s death.
Relatives, who identified the boy’s body yesterday at the Newburg Funeral Parlour, were distraught over the incident and questioned how the boy came to lie in the shallow drain amid the bush at the Liliendaal Railway Embankment. A post-mortem report, they said, revealed that the boy died from trauma to the brain.
Abdool’s body, which bore numerous marks of violence, was discovered by residents of the adjoining Sophia Front, Greater Georgetown, on the morning of December 17. One resident had reported seeing a blue pick-up in the area and one theory was that the boy was dumped there from this vehicle.
Since the discovery authorities had been attempting to identify the boy’s body.
Speaking with Stabroek News yesterday, the boy’s uncle, Khanai Bipat, said he learnt that the unidentified boy was his nephew on Wednesday when he saw a photograph of the dead boy which was published in Monday’s Guyana Chronicle.
He said he contacted the police and on Thursday, with other relatives, visited the orphanage. There, he said, they were told that Abdool’s grandmother - Shira Mohammed - had visited on December 22 and was only then informed that the boy was missing. He said they were told that the boy went missing since December 16 and a report had been made to the Kitty Police Station. The house mother at the orphanage, they said, assured them that the boy was still alive. They said the woman was confident that the boy would return and that he might possibly have been holed up at a friend’s house.
The boy’s family, however, said that when they visited the Kitty Police Station they were informed that no report of the boy being missing had been made between Monday December 16 and Wednesday December 25. The Kitty Police Station yesterday told Stabroek News it had no record of a report being made of the boy’s disappearance but a spokesman at Police Headquarters, Eve Leary says it is possible that the report was not entered into the station logbook.
At the orphanage, which is located at 157 Alexander Street, Kitty, at the intersection with Thomas Street, Stabroek News spoke with the housemother, Bibi Nazz Hakim, who had still believed the boy to be missing. She said he was last seen asleep on the night of December 16 and was discovered gone the next morning.
The woman related that it was usual for prayers to be said at 4 am every morning however no one could find Abdool who usually played truant during this period.
She said after searching the building and ensuring that all the doors were still bolted and padlocked, it was found that a window, overlooking an exterior stairway, was open. It is believed that the boy jumped onto the stairway then onto the fence, before climbing down and making good his escape.
Hakim, who said the boy never spent a night away from the orphanage, said she made a report to the police station after 24 hours had elapsed, while in the interim the search for him continued. Responding to a question about why his relatives were not contacted up to six days after he went missing, the woman said they were still searching and were hoping for some significant find prior to alerting the family. Asked if she had not seen newspaper reports about the discovery of an unidentified boy on December 17, Hakim said that she didn’t get the newspapers.
“What was he doing in Sophia?... I don’t know if he has any friends there... We were looking and we were looking, I just can’t understand how he ended up in Sophia,” she lamented.
She said she knew of no reason why someone would want to harm the boy and was puzzled as to how he ended up in Sophia.
Hakim explained that boys who stay at the orphanage are not allowed to leave the institution without adult supervision, with the exception of when they attend school.
Some persons at the discovery of the boy’s body posited that he was probably a young thief caught in the act and beaten for the offence. Hakim, however, while describing him as mischievous in the way typical of boys his age, especially in school, maintained that he was no thief. The woman said while Abdool would venture into people’s yards and raid their fruit trees, this was as far as he would go. She said he had a fondness for being on the street, and would sometimes during the day escape from the institution to visit video game arcades in the area.
Describing Abdool as a clever boy she wondered how he could meet such a fate.
Relatives of the deceased boy told Stabroek News that he had been at the orphanage for between five to six years. Abdool’s mother, Zulaika, they related, was murdered in 1991, while the boy’s father was never a part of his life. Since the death of his mother the boy lived with his 74-year-old grandmother until she could care for him no longer owing to her age and financial constraints.
Relatives said it was later recommended that the boy be placed in the orphanage, since it was deemed the most suitable place for him. And while at the orphanage he would still be visited by his grandmother.
Abdool’s body, clad in a pair of green long pants, a blue long-sleeved shirt and a pair of badly torn desert boots, was found in the shallow drain around 8:10 am on December 17. His back bore black and blue welts and severe lacerations. There was also bruising to his chest and a small hole was visible on the left rib cage. A few cuts were also evident under his chin and his neck appeared to have been broken.
The relatives, who firmly believe that some foul play is responsible for his death, are hoping that the authorities continue to probe the circumstances.
