MURDER SUSPECT HELDBy CECILY ASSON Thursday, May 13 2010
WHILE armed police officers protected the family of murder victim Isha Hosein as her body was being lowered into a grave at the Oropouche Cemetery yesterday at about 4.30 pm, their colleagues in Sangre Grande apprehended a suspect and took him into custody.
Hosein’s family has received several threatening telephone calls since her murder on Monday, with the caller saying he was not yet finished with them. Even in the hours before yesterday’s funeral, a man called the family and threatened them.
A brief press release from the Public Affairs Unit of the Police Service stated the main suspect in Hosein’s murder had been held in Sangre Grande and was being questioned by the police.
Early on Monday morning, Hosein, 40, of Naranjit Trace, Mon Desir in South Oropouche was beaten with a piece of iron house guttering while she slept on a bed next to her nine-year-old daughter Shenelle.
Hosein was also stabbed by her attacker who sneaked into the house. She and her children had been living at the home of her sister Anita Naranjit for the past two months.
Hosein had ended an abusive relationship and she and her daughters Janelle, 12, and Shenelle moved in with her sister who lives two houses away from her former home.
As news spread through the close-knit farming community that a suspect was held, close relatives breathed a sigh of relief.
Hosein’s brother Ashram Samaroo told Newsday a family member had received another threatening phone call from a man.
The family had been receiving threatening calls regularly and at about 9 am yesterday, there was another one in which the caller threatened to kill Anita, her mother Doris Samaroo and other relatives.
“I am glad he has been held. At least we don’t have to live in fear anymore, at least for the while. I could not sleep these past two days because I wanted to keep watch on my family,” Ashram said.
Yesterday, there were two police jeeps parked outside the house of mourning during the funeral service for Hosein.
A uniformed and plainclothed officer kept guard at the home from as early as 10 am and they were later joined by other officers from the South-Western Division.
Officers armed with self-loading rifles (SLR) and pistols kept watch over the funeral proceedings from the junction leading to the house of mourning.
Hosein’s grieving daughters wept as they gazed sadly at the body of their mother in the casket. Hosein’s body was covered with flowers.
As the sisters performed aarti, a Hindu ritual, for their mother, tears welled in their eyes but they bravely carried out their duties under the guidance of Pundit Deneshwar Maharaj.
During the funeral service at Hosein’s sister’s home, Maharaj beseeched mourners to forgive the killer and called on the police to be more compassionate when reports of violence are made to them.
“Police officers need to realise and understand that a person will not make a report if they don’t feel threatened. These officers need to show more compassion, they need to be more understanding, more caring, they need to be humanlike.”
He said they must give comfort, relief and take distress from the minds of those who go to them. Maharaj said only the killer knew why he murdered Hosein.
“But what we have to do is pray for such an individual. You see, we will be filled with anger and it is natural as human beings to be filled with anger when someone takes the life of another, but we have to find it in our hearts to forgive that person.
“Many of us here right now, if we get our hands on that individual, only God knows what we will do with him,” the pundit said.
He urged mourners to rise above ignorance as murders are committed because of ignorance.
“You have to feel sorry for such people when they act in that mode of ignorance.”
The officers also accompanied mourners to the cemetery where Maharaj, under Hindu rites, committed Hosein’s body to its final resting place inside the grave.
