President’s College student’s suicide…
Kaieteur News
June 6, 2004
THE mother of 16-year-old Meena Ganesh who committed suicide on May 15 has come out with the horrifying news that her daughter ended her life because she was habitually sexually molested by a 27-year-old relative.
Mavis Ganesh of 27 Saffon Street, Charlestown, broke the shocking tale to Kaieteur News yesterday, stating that she only learnt of the sexual relationship between the relative and daughter after Meena’s death.
According to the grieving mother, the man, who lived at the same home with Meena for the past five years, started a relationship with the student some time this year.
Mavis Ganesh added that other relatives were aware of what was going on but failed to inform her for some unknown reason.
She said that she only learnt of this development after the burial of her only daughter who was attending President’s College at the time.
On May 15, Mrs. Ganesh, who temporarily lost her speech after her daughter’s death, wrote a report to this newspaper stating that her daughter had committed suicide because her text books were stolen. The girl was studying for the CXC Examinations.
“I mind him like my own son I never in my wildest dream thought he would have done something like this to me,” Mavis Ganesh said.
“He was like a father to Meena; he betrayed me and more so, Meena.”
According to the mother she does not blame her male relative fully for her daughter’s death. She also blames her daughter.
According to her, on many occasions her daughter would call home and say she was in school but this was seldom the truth.
Mrs. Ganesh said that Meena would leave school and tell her friends she is going at her aunt in Parika to study and they all believed her.
But instead, she would end up at the man’s home on the West Coast of Demerara.
“My own sister and even neighbours said they saw Meena at the house many times, but they only tell me now that she dead and gone.”
Mavis Ganesh told Kaieteur News that since her daughter’s burial the man has gone into hiding.
She was advised by a lawyer that nothing could be done about the matter since the victim is dead.
Meanwhile, Meena’s friends said that the girl was frequently absent from school and often told them that she would not be around to write CXC.
They said that Meena was always at the top of her class and that she topped the entire President’s College for the School Based Assessment.
Kaieteur News understands that Meena would often receive phone calls from a male. After some of these calls she would leave the school saying she was going at her aunt in Parika.
According to reports, on one occasion Meena had a heated argument on the phone.
Prior to the argument she told her friends that it was her relative on the phone. After the incident Meena’s friends found a bleach bottle in her cupboard with what they believed to be poison.
Kaieteur News understands that this was not the first attempt by Meena to end her life.
She often told her friends about the relative but, according to her friends, it never occurred to them that she was involved with him since she spoke of the relative as being a father figure.
Meanwhile, according to the post mortem it was very much likely that the girl had an abortion.
The mother said that neighbours in the De Kinderen community said they would often peep into the house where Meena went to have sex with the 27-year-old man.
The grieving mother is still trying to come to grips with the death of her daughter.
As such she lives in hope that when the CXC examination is completed her Meena will return home just as she told her mother the day before she took her life.