Weary and fed up of the re­la­tion­ship she had en­tered in­to as a child, Re­pub­lic Bank teller Neisha Cyleane Sankar pon­dered the start a new life. How­ev­er, this was not to be as she was sav­age­ly hacked to death by her hus­band Har­richa­ran Ram­sun­dar while their eight-year-old son slept in an­oth­er room ear­ly Monday.

By 3 pm yes­ter­day, hours af­ter a man­hunt was ini­ti­at­ed for his cap­ture, un­der­tak­ers were re­mov­ing Ram­sun­dar’s corpse af­ter South West­ern Di­vi­sion po­lice found him hang­ing in a gar­den, sev­er­al hun­dred me­tres be­hind their home along Phu­lo Dri­ve, Siparia.
A rel­a­tive said Sankar, 29, and Ram­sun­dar, 45, a labour­er, had been hav­ing mar­i­tal prob­lems and she had not been home since Fri­day. Neigh­bours told po­lice that around 6.10 am, they heard Sankar scream­ing and saw Ram­sun­dar chop­ping her with a cut­lass. They told po­lice that af­ter his sav­age at­tack on Sankar, Ram­sum­dar then ran in­to the bush­es with a piece of rope in his hand.

Neigh­bours then took the child out of the house un­til his rel­a­tives ar­rived. The boy was told of his moth­er’s death and though he seemed well, rel­a­tives were con­cerned about how he would re­act in the com­ing days.

When Siparia po­lice re­spond­ed Sankar was al­ready dead. So bru­tal was the chop­ping that her arm was al­most sev­ered and there were gap­ing wounds on her head. Her body was tak­en to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, for an au­top­sy. Of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions, Re­gion Three, led by In­sp Daryl Cor­rie, to­geth­er with the South West­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force, combed the bush­es for hours with the as­sis­tance of the vil­lagers. 
Sankar’s step­fa­ther Cur­tis La Rode said that he had sev­er­al night­mares in the past week and knew that some­thing ter­ri­ble would hap­pen.

How­ev­er, La Rode did not know it would have tak­en away the woman he con­sid­ered his ba­by girl. It was just last week that they spoke to each oth­er and he said she showed no signs of abuse or wor­ry. He said Sankar was not at home over the week­end and on­ly re­turned to pre­pare her son for the first day of the new school year at the Siparia Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry School.
Ram­sun­dar’s fa­ther, Ram­sawack, was dis­ap­point­ed that his son did not deal with his prob­lems in a bet­ter way. So dis­ap­point­ed was Ram­sawak, he said if Ram­sun­dar had come out of the bush­es he would not have been able to face him.
“I am sur­prised that he did that be­cause my son was a cool fel­la. He does not smoke or drink like me. Some­times when he and she had mis­un­der­stand­ings, he would come and say ‘Pa­pi, I want to talk to you.’ He would tell me that he and Cyleane had prob­lems and I would tell him to work it out. Be­fore the thing goes fur­ther, you all make­up that,” Ram­sawack said.
Al­though Ram­sawack lives next door, he said he did not hear any ar­gu­ment or screams. He re­called see­ing Sankar dri­ving her pick-up to the house and min­utes lat­er, his broth­er walked across with the bad news. Un­able to stand the sight of blood, he said he was un­able to go across.

Neigh­bours were in shock yes­ter­day, say­ing that Ram­sun­dar nev­er showed vi­o­lent be­hav­iour. They said he was qui­et and that Sankar was out­go­ing and friend­ly. How­ev­er, they sus­pect that with the age dif­fer­ence, Sankar’s ed­u­ca­tion and de­vel­op­ing so­cial life at the bank, she may have want­ed bet­ter than the re­stric­tive re­la­tion­ship she had. Many of her col­leagues in the bank’s Siparia branch were un­able to work fol­low­ing news of her death.
At the scene yes­ter­day, Siparia West/Fyz­abad coun­cil­lor Mau­rice Alexan­der urged men to walk away from ar­gu­ments and seek help when they feel they can­not cope. He called on the com­mu­ni­ty to sup­port the cou­ple’s son and Ram­sun­dar’s fam­i­ly.
“This is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for us to come to­geth­er and ral­ly around this fam­i­ly in their grief at this time be­cause no one knows who will be next. No one knows which in­ci­dent is go­ing to oc­cur next to which fam­i­ly. I think if we come to­geth­er as a com­mu­ni­ty, even more, to thrash out our is­sues, we will be able to erad­i­cate and al­le­vi­ate homes of these is­sues,” Alexan­der said.

Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd mean­while ex­pressed con­do­lences to Sankar’s fam­i­ly and has ini­ti­at­ed its em­ploy­ee as­sis­tance pro­gramme for her griev­ing col­leagues. Gen­er­al Man­ag­er, Group Mar­ket­ing and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Michel­la Palmer-Keiz­er said yes­ter­day that she was a mem­ber of their team for the past sev­en years, work­ing at the Fyz­abad and Siparia branch­es. 

“We are deeply sad­dened by her un­time­ly pass­ing. Our thoughts, prayers and sym­pa­thies go out to her fam­i­ly, friends and col­leagues at this time and we will pro­vide sup­port as need­ed to her fam­i­ly,” Palmer-Keiz­er said.