Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Po­lice are work­ing on a the­o­ry that four Bar­rack­pore men drank pom­mer­ac wine and ate a meal of cur­ried chick­en and rice, laced with thin­ners be­fore their deaths. The four friends col­lapsed and died af­ter in­gest­ing a poi­so­nous sub­stance dur­ing a Sun­day lime at Bar­rack­pore. Last night, homi­cide de­tec­tives were try­ing to find out the ex­act cir­cum­stances of the deaths of Win­ston See­lal, 55, Naz­im Mo­hammed, 40, Ma­hadeo Roopc­hand, 40, and Ramdeo Jug­mo­han, 49. See­lal and Roopc­hand, both of Ram­per­sad Trace, were found ly­ing in foetal po­si­tions next to each oth­er on the floor of See­lal's wood­en and gal­vanised home. Jug­mo­han, of Ram­s­ingh Trace, was found ly­ing face down in a drain about 50 feet away in See­lal's yard, while Mo­hammed, of De­bie Trace, was found in a fig patch about 100 feet away.

Po­lice said their fin­gers and toes were curled in­ward and they were vom­it­ing and froth­ing from their mouths be­fore they died. Vil­lagers, who saw the men ly­ing on the ground, be­lieved, ini­tial­ly, that they were drunk. How­ev­er, a call was made to the po­lice, who re­spond­ed and re­alised that the men were dead. Jug­mo­han's wid­ow, Bren­da, said she did not know how the friends died. "I find it strange that this hap­pened to them, be­cause my hus­band was a good man. He did not have any en­e­mies." The weep­ing wid­ow said Jug­mo­han was fast­ing, as they were sup­posed to have Hin­du prayers on No­vem­ber 17. "I can't say what went wrong. All I know is that we got a call, and when we got there he was ly­ing in a drain and gasp­ing for breath."

Bren­da said Jug­mo­han was tak­en to San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, and at­tempts were made to pump out flu­id from his lungs. How­ev­er, she said he died 15 min­utes lat­er. Two doc­tors who treat­ed Jug­mo­han al­so fell ill, Bren­da said. Daugh­ter Raquel Bas­sant said she passed by See­lal's home around 10.40 pm and saw him and an­oth­er man ly­ing on the ground. "We thought they were drunk and ly­ing around. But I did not know my fa­ther was there," Bas­sant cried. See­lal's broth­er, Reynold, said he saw the men drink­ing and lim­ing on Sun­day evening. Reynold said See­lal was a chron­ic drug user, but nev­er in­ter­fered with any­one.

"He us­ing drugs about 30 years now. He used to work at the Min­istry of Works, but he us­ing drugs. His wife and chil­dren left and he stopped work­ing." Roopc­hand's sis­ter-in-law, Ri­ta Ram­roop, said he worked as a welder and did not lime of­ten with See­lal. Mean­while, homi­cide de­tec­tives said they found no ev­i­dence of in­sec­ti­cide or weed­i­cide at the scene of the crime. How­ev­er, they seized sev­er­al glass­es con­tain­ing home-made pom­mer­ac wine and a bot­tle of thin­ners, used for paint­ing. Au­top­sies will be done to­day at the Foren­sic Sci­ences Cen­tre. Cpl Pe­ter Ramdeen and In­sp Archie, of San Fer­nan­do Homi­cide Bu­reau, are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.