Bath taxi service owner shot dead

BY Shabna Ullah

– was reportedly playing with gun

 
Friday, November 28, 2008 

The owner of Timeless Taxi Service of Bath Experiment, West Coast Berbice died during a drinking session at a Chinese restaurant around 2.30 pm yesterday and reports are that he shot himself in the head.

Stabroek News learnt that Doulatram ‘Dara’ Singh, 35, a father of four was playing with a gun when he accidentally pulled the trigger. The bullet entered the right side of his head. Singh did not own a gun and no one could say where he might have acquired the one he was allegedly playing with.

Curious villagers mill around as undertakers from the Anthony Funeral Establishment removed the body yesterday.

 

According to reports, Singh was drinking with a friend at Lai Li Jiu Jia Chinese Restaurant yesterday. Two of the restaurant’s employees were reportedly present and the friend allegedly left Singh to go to the washroom. While there, he reportedly heard an explosion and on checking realized that the man had shot himself.

A large crowd gathered in front of the restaurant yesterday where the police were taking finger prints and conducting investigations; the gates to eating house were locked.

Through the iron-grille gates, this newspaper could see Singh’s body still in a sitting position on a chair that was braced against the wall. His head was tilted to the right and he was partly covered with blood. A pool of blood was on the floor. Four beer bottles were on the table.
The man’s wife, Christine Singh, who was inconsolable, told this newspaper that she and her husband had no problems and she questioned why he would want to kill himself.

A distraught Christine Singh, surrounded by her children, Marissa, 11 (left); Doulatram Jr, 13 (right), eight-year-old Joshua (second, right) and six-year-old Travis (seated on mother) sits in front of the concrete blocks her husband had bought to extend their house.

She said her husband never even any showed signs of wanting to end his life. In fact he had just bought concrete blocks to extend their one-flat unpainted concrete house in time for Christmas.

The distraught woman kept lamenting, “we na had no problems; if we had problems and this de happen to he ah woulda say that’s why…”
In tears, she recalled that her husband had taken their children home from school for lunch and after they had eaten, he took them back to school, but did not return home. She said he called her a few times and told her he would “come just now.” But “just now” never reached, she said.

Christine said he did not go to pick up the children after school and it was when she saw them arrive home on their own that she called his cellular phone. She said a female employee of the taxi service answered it and told her that he had shot himself and was dead. Christine said her husband did not own a gun. The employee, Neeta Persaud told this newspaper that Singh was at the taxi base located at Bath Settlement in the morning and he was in good spirits.
Persaud said she was dropping off a passenger at Bush Lot around 3 pm when she received a call from the friend he was drinking with that “Dara shoot heself and he dead and he gat to call the police.”

She said that she went to the restaurant and was told that her employer had been playing with the gun.
The man leaves to mourn his wife and four children, Doulatram Jr., 13, Marissa, 11, eight-year-old Joshua and six-year-old Travis. He was also taking care of three other children.