Resh­ma Ra­goonath

All Ba­tia Ram­sumair want­ed for Moth­er's Day was to make peace with her es­tranged son. Lit­tle did she know it would have been her last wish. Yes­ter­day, Ram­sumair, 70, was blud­geoned to death by her son, Bas­deo "Rat­ty" Ra­goo­bar, 47, at his Sukhu Trace, Bar­rack­pore, home af­ter an ar­gu­ment over land.

Ra­goo­bar, over­come with guilt af­ter his ac­tions, took his own life min­utes af­ter mur­der­ing his moth­er. Bar­rack­pore po­lice made the grue­some dis­cov­ery yes­ter­day af­ter they were called out to in­ves­ti­gate a do­mes­tic dis­pute around 9 am. Neigh­bours told po­lice they heard nois­es com­ing from Ra­goo­bar's home and then saw Ram­sumair ly­ing on the ground in a pool of blood.

On­ly then did they con­tact the po­lice. Of­fi­cers found Ram­sumair's body in the front yard of Ra­goo­bar's home, which moth­er and son once shared. They al­so found the se­mi-nude corpse of Ra­goo­bar ly­ing face down in some bush­es about 500 feet from his moth­er's body. He re­port­ed­ly con­sumed a poi­sio­nous liq­uid, as a bot­tle con­tain­ing a brown­ish sub­stance was found near­by.

Po­lice are now search­ing for Ra­goo­bar's fe­male rel­a­tive whom they be­lieve could as­sist in piec­ing to­geth­er the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the mur­der/sui­cide. Two Hin­du mur­tis lay over­turned near Ram­sumair's body. Po­lice were up to late yes­ter­day search­ing for the weapon used to blud­geon the grand­moth­er.

Yes­ter­day, griev­ing rel­a­tives said they had planned a spe­cial sur­prise to cel­e­brate Moth­er's Day with Ram­sumair at her Jones Vil­lage, Khan­hai Road, home. How­ev­er, the woman was in­sis­tent on vis­it­ing Ra­goo­bar and spend­ing time with him. They had not spo­ken in over a year but she want­ed to see him and make peace.

Yes­ter­day, as the un­der­tak­ers placed Ra­goo­bar's body next to his moth­er's in a van, his sis­ter An­nie, 36, cried out: "Why she had to come and spend Moth­er's Day with he? She want­ed to spend Moth­er's day with him. Now she get to spend Moth­er's Day with him," as she was com­fort­ed by her hus­band Ravi Ram­dass.

Rel­a­tives said for 18 years Ram­sumair and Ra­goo­bar had a vi­o­lent re­la­tion­ship which es­ca­lat­ed last year when she left her home to live with one of her son in Jones Vil­lage. A pro­tec­tion or­der was lat­er tak­en out against Ra­goo­bar. He was re­cent­ly re­leased from prison af­ter serv­ing time for breach­ing the or­der.

Ram­sumair's el­dest son, Dass Ra­goo­bar, 49, said he warned his moth­er about go­ing to his broth­er's house. "She said it is Moth­er's Day and she have to talk to him. She said he have to think about his moth­er. She in­sist­ed. She did not want to lis­ten. If she did on­ly lis­ten. I saw this on TV so many times and now look how it hap­pen to we," he sobbed.

Dass held his head in dis­be­lief as he said: "He kill she, he kill she...she son. All she want­ed was to talk to him. It's Moth­er's Day out of all the days. Moth­er's Day he kill she. He was al­ways vi­o­lent. He al­ways threat­en­ing to kill some­body. I was not here. If I was home I would not have let her go there."

He said his moth­er sin­gle-hand­ed­ly raised her five chil­dren af­ter his fa­ther died. "She worked hard. She take dirt in her hands and build that house (fam­i­ly home.) She worked hard to bring we up." One of Ram­sumair's grand­chil­dren said she loved her son too much.

"It is so trag­ic. It is a moth­er lov­ing a son and she come to see him to­day on Moth­er's Day and he kill her. She just love him too much. You can­not ac­cept that. He was her son. He mean every­thing to her as all her chil­dren do," he said. Com­mu­ni­ty De­vl­op­ment Min­is­ter Nizam Baksh, who lives a short dis­tance from Ra­goo­bar's home, vis­it­ed the scene and ex­tend­ed his con­do­lences. He lament­ed the man­ner in which Ram­sumair died.

"It is dis­cour­ag­ing to see what is hap­pened here to­day. It is Moth­er's Day, a day when we should all be show­ing love to our moth­ers, a very spe­cial day and to see an in­ci­dent like this hap­pen­ing to­day in a deep rur­al com­mu­ni­ty, it means that to­day peo­ple are los­ing their pa­tience," he said. Asst Supt Zamsheed Mo­hammed, homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tors Sgt Pe­ter Ramdeen, Cpl Ifill, Cpl Ho­sein, to­geth­er with Crime Scene In­ves­ti­ga­tors vis­it­ed the scene and record­ed state­ments.