Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Five days af­ter his car was found aban­doned in Cou­va, the de­com­pos­ing body of au­to car sales­man Rishi Ram­per­sad was found slumped in the forest­ed ar­eas off the Pe­nal/Quinam Road in Siparia. The dis­cov­ery was made by po­lice around 5.30 pm on Sat­ur­day, af­ter an anony­mous tip-off. Sis­ter Usha Balka­ran said they got a call from po­lice that a body was found and that they need­ed as­sis­tance in iden­ti­fy­ing it. Around 10 am yes­ter­day, Ram­per­sad's broth­er Ravi Ram­per­sad and cousin Win­ston Ram­per­sad went to San Fer­nan­do mor­tu­ary, where they pos­i­tive­ly iden­ti­fied the corpse. Win­ston said Ram­per­sad's body was de­com­posed and was dressed in a vest and jeans.

Po­lice said Ram­per­sad's shirt was miss­ing. His wal­let and jew­el­ry were al­so miss­ing. Po­lice said they were un­able to say whether the body bore marks of vi­o­lence, be­cause of the ad­vanced state of de­com­po­si­tion. Rel­a­tives gath­ered yes­ter­day at the fam­i­ly's home on Del­hi Road, Fyz­abad, weep­ing with shock. Sis­ter Mal­tee Balka­ran cried: "I don't know who would do this to my broth­er. He was such a good per­son. He al­ways try­ing to bring our fam­i­ly to­geth­er for a lit­tle cook or a lime. He did not de­serve to die like this." Mal­tee said that dur­ing the past few days, they searched in vain Cou­va, Ch­agua­nas, Bar­rack­pore, Debe, Pe­nal, La Ro­maine and Fyz­abad.

"We did not think we would find him like this. We thought some­body had him and we were plead­ing with them to re­lease him," Mal­tee said. Ram­per­sad, of Del­hi Road, Fyz­abad, went miss­ing af­ter lim­ing at the Prive night­club in La Ro­maine. Rel­a­tives said he stayed for half-an-hour at a pri­vate par­ty host­ed at the club, be­fore leav­ing, but didn't re­turned home. Ram­per­sad's car was found at a house in Cou­va on Mon­day. Ram­per­sad worked with Ram­lo­gan's Au­to Sup­plies at Mara­bel­la and was the step­broth­er of chut­ney singer Asha Ka­machee. Ram­per­sad's par­ents–Pol­ly Ram­per­sad and fa­ther Har­ry Ka­machee–were in­con­solable yes­ter­day. Rel­a­tives were busy set­ting up tents to hold a wake. An au­top­sy is ex­pect­ed to be done to­day at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre.