Police probing death of West Bank man
Guyana Chronicle
July 8, 2004
THE Police are investigating an incident in which Kellawan Etwaroo, 38, called “Ramesh”, was discovered dead in the lockups of La Grange Police Station on Tuesday morning.
According to the dead man’s wife, Angela Deen, 33, of Lot 5 Palmer Street, La Grange, West Bank Demerara, she visited La Grange Police Station at about said 7:00 hrs on Tuesday taking with her a meal and a change of clothing for her husband. The woman said she was told that Etwaroo was scheduled to make a Court appearance that day.
Ms Deen said that she was unaware that her husband was dead. She related that the officer-in-charge asked her to accompany him to a room. There she was read a statement by the officer and asked to sign her name to the document.
The grieving woman told the Guyana Chronicle that she is illiterate and can only sign her name. The officer, she said, kept insisting that her husband was demented.
“He (the officer) keep telling me that me husband mad, but he was not sick, or he does ketch fits. In fact, he was a very strong man only does drink lil rum,” Deen explained.
After signing the document, the woman said she was then told that her husband had died in the lockups after hitting his head against the wall on Monday night.
After recovering from the shock, Deen said that she demanded to see her husband’s body. She was then taken to the cell where she saw him lying on his abdomen with faeces covering the lower part of his body. Blood was oozing from his mouth.
“Blood been on his briefs, too, and he look like he get beat up cause he head bust up bad,” Deen said between sobs yesterday.
While Deen was at the Police Station, her in-laws were at the Leonora Magistrate’s Court awaiting Etwaroo’s arrival. They had no idea that he was dead.
Recalling the incident, which she believed lead to Etwaroo’s death, Deen said that her husband was drinking at a nearby rum shop at about 2:00 hrs on June 21. He was in the company of two women from the village.
“One of dem see a Rasta man come in de shop and she get frighten and tek off she two gold rings she been ah wear and give it to my husband fuh keep. He bring it home and give it to me fuh keep till de lady come collect it,” Deen explained.
She said that later that morning the woman showed up for her gold rings and she was given them. However, the woman claimed that she had given Etwaroo four gold rings, not two, and she demanded that they hand over the other two rings, said Deen.
Friday last, some three weeks later, Deen said, a vanload of Police ranks picked up her husband from a rum shop and took him to La Grange Police Station, where he was detained.
The woman lamented that since her husband’s detention at the Police Station, she had visited the Station taking meals for him. Her requests to see or speak with her husband were denied.
“Me even carry dem children on Saturday and Sunday to see their father, but dem Police said ‘he dey okay’ and ‘wheh you ah bring food fuh a mad man’,” noted the woman.
When she visited the Station Monday, Deen said, she was told that her husband was alive and well.
A post mortem yesterday morning revealed that Etwaroo died from five blows to the head inflicted with a blunt instrument. He suffered a massive hemorrhage and his body had marks of violence.
Etwaroo is survived by his wife, two children, his father and his siblings.
The Police, in a press release yesterday, said that an investigation to determine the circumstances under which Etwaroo died has been launched. (Michel Outridge)