Shar­lene Ram­per­sad

Rel­a­tives and neigh­bors of car­pen­ter Taran­per­sad Balka­ran re­mained baf­fled yes­ter­day as to how his house burnt flat in the dead of the night, with him still in­side it.

Balka­ran's charred re­mains were found by fire of­fi­cers who re­spond­ed to a re­port of a house fire in Sun­drees Road, Pe­nal, around 12.25 am yes­ter­day.

Balka­ran, 53, was af­fec­tion­ate­ly known as 'Kosh.'

In an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian, Balka­ran's sis­ter-in-law, In­dra Ramge­wan de­scribed him as lov­ing and hard­work­ing and said the fam­i­ly was in shock over his death.

How­ev­er, she said his two vices, al­co­hol and cig­a­rettes, may have caused the fire that took his life.

"I know he took a few drinks yes­ter­day evening and he used to smoke," she said. "We're not sure but it could be that he was smok­ing and fell asleep and that caused the fire to start."

"I don't know how or why he didn't try to come out of the house or run or any­thing though."

She said al­though Balka­ran had no chil­dren of his own, he would spend his Christ­mas and oth­er hol­i­days with her five grand­chil­dren.

"They might be the ones to miss him the most, he would al­ways come and look for them. Every Christ­mas, birth­day, every­thing, he made sure to get them some­thing."

She could not say when the fu­ner­al ser­vice would be held for Balka­ran.

His body was tak­en to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre for an au­top­sy to­mor­row.

Eye­wit­ness ac­count

Balka­ran's neigh­bour, Al­isha Ho­sein said she awoke short­ly af­ter 12 am and heard a loud 'swoosh­ing' noise.

"It sound­ed like how the wind sounds dur­ing a hur­ri­cane," she said. "Then I heard some­thing fall and shat­ter and I looked out my win­dow and saw our truck on fire.

"By the time I called out to my fa­ther and we ran down­stairs, his house was well en­gulfed in flames. The fire of­fi­cers on­ly found him af­ter the fire was put out."

She ex­plained that Balka­ran, 53, lived next to her fam­i­ly's home as her grand­fa­ther had giv­en him the piece of land 23 years ago to build a house.

One of her fa­ther's trucks which was parked close to Balka­ran's 15 x 20 wood­en home was com­plete­ly de­stroyed by the fire. An­oth­er truck and a hilux van were al­so dam­aged, and the gal­vanise cov­er­ing a shed next to Balka­ran's home was al­so dam­aged.

Ho­sein es­ti­mat­ed the fam­i­ly's loss­es to be over $.7 mil­lion.