At least two doctors, including one working at the Health Ministry, two lawyers and one accountant were at the “private beach party” that is currently engaging the attention of police, according to a post on the Facebook account of Odai Ramischand, the father of the woman who posted a video of the event on social media over the weekend.
Guyana-born attorney Ramischand also used his social media platform to send an explicit message to Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh, over the minister’s comments against his daughter Samantha, who was seen in the video.
Late Tuesday, several posts surrounding the contentious issue were posted on Ramischand’s Facebook page. In an apparent response to the severe criticism of his daughter’s post, Ramischand said his family and friends had gathered to celebrate his last son’s 15th birthday.
“So it was not a frolic of their own kind of thing or any type of bizarre or uncivilised behaviour,” a post on Ramischand’s FB account stated.
Ramischand said the event was on 600 acres of privately owned land but they were adhering to the social gathering regulations.
“There were many of them there but staying in different houses so as not to violate the not more than five gathering rule,” he posted.
Among those in attendance were his daughter Samantha, who posted the video, her sister Ramona, her husband Ashan, as well as her Ramischand’s sons Siddharta and Kirana.
“If my daughter Dr Ramona Ramischand provides health care services to the people of Trinidad and Tobago, don’t you think she would have cautioned her sister about her conduct on the private family beach and beach houses?” Ramischand posted.
Deyalsingh took Samantha to task for the video she posted on the party during Monday’s COVID-19 press conference, since the use of all beaches, rivers and streams during the current pandemic is against the health regulations.
Ramischand did not mince words in his message to Deyalsingh.
“F--- you and your family and be prepared for a fight you have never experienced before,” Ramischand posted.
“I shall beg no quarters and seek no favours one of us shall be decimated and pulverised and I am sure it will not be me.”
Ramischand, however, said his message to Deyalsingh was not a threat.
“I do not mean any violence whatsoever but the pursuit of justice by the might wealth and power of my family,” he stated.
The issue of private beaches has also come to the fore.
Ramischand stated that “all the talk of the law of the seawater lines and territorial boundaries are subsumed, submerged and extinguished when the Real Property Limitation Act kicks in and is invoked if you are in occupation of private property for 16 years and more.”
He said since the murder of his daughter Nikita he ensures the need for family time.
“I have a duty and a responsibility as a good father to engage my children in activities to alleviate their grief and pain and suffering because of the denial of justice to my family,” Ramischand stated.
Nikita, 18, was believed to have been ambushed and murdered as she was walking to her mother’s salon, which is located on the property of the family’s Maracas, St Joseph home, in 2012. Her body was found at the back of the compound by family members who went searching for her after she did not answer her mother’s calls to her cellphone. There was a main suspect in that case but no charges were ever laid against him.
The T&T Police Service executed a search warrant at St Augustine house on Tuesday, where electronic devices were seized as part of the investigation into the matter.
Ramischand was also taken to task on social media after his posts, which were filled with grammatical and spelling errors, went viral.
“Please do not berate me for my poor publication on Facebook I am learning to use same,” he stated.
