Derek Achong

A 25-year-old ma­son re­mained at hos­pi­tal un­der po­lice guard last night af­ter his ve­hi­cle ploughed in­to a group of limers at a bar in Cau­ra yes­ter­day morn­ing, killing five peo­ple and leav­ing five oth­ers se­ri­ous­ly in­jured. The vic­tims have been iden­ti­fied as:

• Shi­va Bharath, 27, of St Joseph

• Shayaz Khan, 25, of McKen­zie Street, Fred­er­ick Set­tle­ment, Ca­roni

• Har­ry­lal Mon­groo, 31, an elec­tri­cian, of Ma­haraj Street, Five Rivers

• Arun Nar­ma, 22, of Cau­ra Roy­al Road, El Do­ra­do

• Chris­tine Khan, 51, moth­er of Shayaz Khan, al­so of Fred­er­ick Set­tle­ment

Their deaths pushed the road fa­tail­i­ty fig­ure to 90, ac­cord­ing to sta­tis­tics from the Po­lice High­way Pa­trol and Traf­fic Branch. The dri­ver of the car, of Kan­da­har Vil­lage, Tacarigua, yes­ter­day re­mained un­der po­lice guard at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mt Hope. He re­port­ed­ly re­ceived mi­nor in­juries from the crash.

The dri­ver told in­ves­ti­ga­tors that around 5.30 am he was dri­ving east along the East­ern Main Road in El Do­ra­do in his Nis­san Almera, when on reach­ing Cau­ra Junc­tion he was forced to swerve to avoid col­lid­ing with an­oth­er car ex­it­ing Cau­ra Roy­al Road. How­ev­er, po­lice sources said eye­wit­ness­es' ver­sion of the ac­ci­dent dif­fered from those pro­vid­ed by the dri­ver.

The T&T Guardian was told that the dri­ver's speech was slurred and the state­ments he ini­tial­ly made to the shocked on­look­ers af­ter the crash were in­co­her­ent. Po­lice said he claimed that af­ter swerv­ing to avoid hit­ting the oth­er car, he rammed in­to two parked cars on the op­po­site side of the road, out­side the pop­u­lar Palance Bar, which is well known for its 24-hour open­ing hours.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said be­cause of the speed at which the car was go­ing, it slammed in­to cus­tomers who were seat­ed in­side the bar. Eye­wit­ness­es told in­ves­ti­ga­tors the car went air­borne for a cou­ple of sec­onds be­fore land­ing on top of Khan, Bharath and Mon­groo who were seat­ed around a ta­ble in the bar. The five in­jured pa­trons were rushed to hos­pi­tal. Among those in­jured were:

• Ani­ka Small

• Ke­l­isha Al­leyne

• Visham Sookraj, broth­er of the bar own­er. Mon­groo, one of the pa­trons killed.

Two oth­er male pa­trons who al­so re­mained uniden­ti­fied up to late yes­ter­day were al­so tak­en to hos­pi­tal. They were ward­ed in a sta­ble con­di­tion. In an in­ter­view at Mon­groo's home, his sis­ter Gee­ta said their fam­i­ly was dev­as­tat­ed by their rel­a­tive's death. An in­con­solable Gee­ta said her broth­er was re­cent­ly en­gaged and was due to get mar­ried lat­er this year.

At Khan's home in Ca­roni, no one re­spond­ed. Neigh­bours said his moth­er and broth­er, who he lived with, were in mourn­ing and were busy mak­ing fu­ner­al arrange­ments. Im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the ac­ci­dent, the dri­ver was ar­rest­ed and tak­en to the Tu­na­puna Po­lice Sta­tion where a breathal­yser test was ad­min­is­tered by Cpl Leo Si­mon.

The dri­ver failed the test and was said to be more than dou­ble the le­gal al­co­hol lim­it. A source close to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion said yes­ter­day of­fi­cers were con­sid­er­ing lay­ing five charges of caus­ing death by dan­ger­ous dri­ving against the dri­ver, in ad­di­tion to a drunk­en dri­ving charge.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors are ex­pect­ed to con­sult with Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard lat­er this week for ad­vice on the charges, once the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is near com­ple­tion. Se­nior Supt David Abra­ham, Supt Oth­aniel Williams, In­spec­tor Jug­mo­han, Sgt Mark Ma­haraj were among the po­lice de­tec­tives who vis­it­ed the scene with fire of­fi­cers from the Tu­na­puna Fire Sta­tion. Cpl Julien of the Tu­na­puna Po­lice Sta­tion is con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.