Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

UNC foot sol­dier Naitram "Al­fie" Subi­ah will not see his dream of uni­ty of the op­po­si­tion forces be­come a re­al­i­ty.

Subi­ah, 63, his wife Mau­reen, 53, and their 25-year-old daugh­ter Crys­tal, of Dum­fries Road, La Ro­maine, per­ished when a truck, be­long­ing to Na­tion­al Flour Mills, crossed the me­di­an and hit their Hi-Lux van, short­ly af­ter 2 pm yes­ter­day. Po­lice said Subi­ah, the UNC Oropouche East con­stituen­cy chair­man, was dri­ving on the north­bound car­riage­way when tragedy struck. Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said Subi­ah died just as his po­lit­i­cal dream came to pass. "Al­fie craved for Op­po­si­tion uni­ty," Mooni­lal said last night. "He kept in­sist­ing that the Op­po­si­tion should unite and he felt strong­ly that we could not move for­ward un­less we formed a com­mon bond." He said Subi­ah had been "de­pressed" over the frac­tured state of the Op­po­si­tion, but "he had be­come heart­ened over the past few days when we made strides in unit­ing all the forces." Mooni­lal said Subi­ah had been work­ing on his cam­paign over the past few days.

He said the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress would pay fu­ner­al costs for the Subi­ahs. The truck, dri­ven by Kevon Moses, 32, of Low­place East Dry Riv­er, Laven­tille, picked up a skid on the wet road, af­ter its right tyre blew. The truck crossed the grass verge and ca­reened head-on in­to the pick-up, spilling sacks of flour on the road­way. Subi­ah flew out of the van and crashed in­to the steel bar­ri­ers lo­cat­ed on top of the Gas­par­il­lo Fly­over, po­lice said. He died on the spot. His wife al­so flew out, but Crys­tal re­mained trapped in the wrecked van. The lop-sided truck brought traf­fic to a stand­still. Scores of mo­torists ran out of their ve­hi­cles to as­sist. One such mo­torist, Roland McIn­tosh, ap­pealed for peo­ple to ex­er­cise care on the road. As rain pelt­ed down from the skies, sev­er­al by­standers brushed away tears. The oc­cu­pants of the truck–Nigel Kel­ly, 35, Jeff Lewis, 26, and Moses–were tak­en by am­bu­lance to San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. All three un­der­went emer­gency surgery last night and were list­ed in crit­i­cal con­di­tion.

Subi­ah's broth­er-in-law Lin­coln Seep­aul said Subi­ah and his wife were head­ing to get a med­ical check-up at Lange Park, Ch­agua­nas, when they were killed.

He de­scribed Subi­ah as a com­mit­ted work­er who re­tired from the Pub­lic Ser­vice Trans­port Cor­po­ra­tion. Subi­ah was al­so a com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist who worked to re­duce pover­ty in the area, he said. Ware­house and dis­tri­b­u­tion man­ag­er of Na­tion­al Flour Mills Lin­coln Beck­les said the truck was head­ing south to make a de­liv­ery. Po­lice said au­top­sies will be done on all three bod­ies to­day at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre. Sgt Singh, PC Suli­man, Supt San­tana and of­fi­cers of the San Fer­nan­do Traf­fic De­part­ment are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions. Mooni­lal re­mained in shock last night, hours af­ter he heard the news that his con­stituen­cy chair­man was dead.

He vis­it­ed the fam­i­ly's home last night and ex­pressed hor­ror at the tragedy. He said Subi­ah worked at the con­stituen­cy of­fice un­til 1.30 pm yes­ter­day, and then left to pick up his daugh­ter Crys­tal in Gas­par­il­lo. Mooni­lal said Subi­ah was heav­i­ly in­volved in the elec­tion cam­paign. "He was a chief sol­dier of the UNC...He worked at my of­fice for eight years and he was a mem­ber of the UNC for 25 years," Mooni­lal said. He added that when he first took up the post of Oropouche East can­di­date, Subi­ah left for­mer MP Trevor Su­dama and worked with him. "I didn't know a place in Debe, and Subi­ah took me around and showed me the con­stituen­cy," he said.