MAN TAKES HIS OWN LIFEBy CECILY ASSON Wednesday, August 19 2009
WHEN his plea for a reconciliation fell on deaf ears, insurance clerk Gary Balkaran attacked his wife Nadine on Monday inside the New India Assurance Company office in Rio Claro, where they both worked. He bound and gagged her with duct tape, then beat and choked her.
Believing her to be dead, Balkaran, 36, left the office and went to the marital home, also in Rio Claro, where he committed suicide by drinking a toxic substance and stabbing himself in the neck with a pair of scissors.
Nadine, 27, remained warded yesterday at an undisclosed nursing home recovering from injuries to her neck.
The couple who have a four-year-old daughter were experiencing marital problems and for the past four months, lived apart, although they both worked together in the insurance company located off the Rio Claro Main Road.
On Monday, police said, when Balkaran arrived for work at 10 am, he begged Nadine to reconcile but when she refused, he locked the door of the insurance company and attacked her. Nadine overpowered, bound and gagged with duct tape was then beaten and choked by her husband.
He then left the office and went to his home at Naparima Mayaro Road, Mile End in Rio Claro where he committed suicide. Nadine somehow managed to get the duct tape off her mouth and screamed for help.
A man who was liming nearby in a bar and a woman described by police as the landlady who rented the building to New India Assurance, were alerted by Nadine’s screams for help and ran into the office, and found her crying on the floor.
The police were called in and Nadine was taken away for medical treatment. Two hours later, police officers who were searching for Balkaran, found his body in a bathroom at his home.
After the District Medical Officer (DMO) viewed Balkaran’s body, it was removed to the Forensic Science Centre in St James where an autopsy confirmed he died from self-inflicted stab wounds to the neck and ingestion of a poisonous substance. The blood-stained scissors and bottle of poison, both found near Balkaran’s body, have been seized by police.
Nadine’s relatives said that she and Balkaran were separated since April with Nadine leaving the marital home and going back to live with her parents at their home in Navet Village, Rio Claro.
Nadine’s father Towfeek Mohammed said his daughter remains warded and in severe pain after the attack. “Her neck is badly bruised and she is in tremendous pain. All the tendons in her neck are swollen and she had to seek further medical attention,” Mohammed said.
“She is now at a nursing home. That man attacked my daughter just so. I believe he just tripped,” he added.
When Newsday visited Balkaran’s home, relatives declined to comment much on the incident. A woman who identified herself as Balkaran’s sister, said the family was busy preparing for his funeral, “so we cannot speak now.” The insurance company remained closed yesterday. Acting Cpl Maharaj is continuing investigations.
Monday’s attempted murder/suicide came 12 days after Police Corporal Sean James shot dead his girlfriend Dorna Noel, 45, at the office of a Curepe doctor, where she worked as a clerk, before turning the Police Issued firearm and shooting himself once in the head.
Cpl James subsequently died at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex in Mt Hope.
