Thirty-seven-year-old shopkeeper, Rajpattie Jageswar, was brutally slain by masked men in the yard of her modest home at 193 Grove Squatting Area while her two children were held at gunpoint and forced to hand over the family's small savings on Good Friday.
Seventeen-year-old Govindarai and his 11-year-old sister Satrupa
mourn the loss of their mother. Govindarai demonstrates how his hands were
bound. (Pictures by Cullen
Bess-Nelson)
According to the dead woman's 17-year-old son, Govindarai Jageswar, called ‘Ravi’, the family had just returned home at about 22:00 h after attending services at the local Mandir when his mother went into the yard to fill a pot from the water tank close by.
Grief-stricken relatives of the late
Rajpattie Jageswar converge at the scene of her demise to comfort her
traumatised children. In photo is brother of the deceased Moti Anganoo (at
right wearing cap) flanked by mourning relatives.
The visibly
shaken youth recounted that after his mother failed to return to the house, he
went in search of her accompanied by his 11-year-old sister Satrupa Jageswar,
called ‘Devi’. Just outside the back door of the two-storeyed house, they were
accosted by two masked men who wore dark clothing and were armed with knives.
The men tied the teenager’s hands and covered his mouth while demanding that
Devi hand over all the family's money, he said.
“I told them
that we lost all the jewellery in an accident and one raised his hand to hit me
and asked me if I lying and I said no,” the girl recounted.
Apparently
satisfied that the child was telling the truth, the men left, after telling the
duo that their mother would come to them shortly.
According to
the children, they waited for a few minutes before venturing outside and, on
exiting the back door, they saw their mother lying on the ground, still clad in
her white sari which was now drenched in blood. The youngsters say they then
returned to the house where Ravi called the police before raising an
alarm.
Moti Anganoo,
the woman's brother, said his sister received eight stab wounds and her throat
appeared to have been slit during the 20-minute ordeal. He is of the opinion
that incident was an execution instead of a robbery since according to him the
woman was involved in an ongoing dispute over her deceased husband's
property.
“If it was a
robbery they would have threatened her and try to get the money, but they just
kill her like that. Eight times they stab her plus slice her throat. That is not
robbery,” he maintained.
Relatives say
this is the second tragedy to beset the Jageswar family in recent times. The
dead woman, her husband and two children were involved in an automobile accident
about eight months ago.
Mr. Jageswar's
injuries were fatal.
When the Sunday Chronicle visited the home of the
deceased, blood stains were still visible in the yard where the woman's
grief-stricken relatives had converged. They said some of the woman's teeth had
earlier been strewn on the blood-drenched concrete but were removed from the
scene.
The children will now have to grow up without a father or mother and are
frightened by that prospect.
Jageswar leaves to mourn her two children,
siblings and other relatives.
