Barrackpore mother of two Vashti Suraj-Sookram, 30, was last night fighting for her life after she was chopped multiple times by her husband, who then took his own life on Monday night.
Suraj-Sookram’s elderly mother was also injured in the attack after she tried to wrestle the cutlass away from her son-in-law David Sookram.
Other family members, including the couple’s two children, ages eight and 12, witnessed the bloody incident.
With his wife bleeding on the ground, Sookram, 38, a mechanic, ran to the back of the house where he died after ingesting a poisonous substance.
The couple had been married for 14 years and they, along with their children, lived with Suraj-Sookram’s parents at Kanhai Road South.
While relatives cleaned up the blood in the yard on Tuesday morning, bloodstains were still splattered in her bedroom on the bed and walls when Guardian Media visited.
Relatives said the incident has left them confused. As far as they knew, Sookram was not a violent person.
However, Maureen Rampersad told reporters that last week Thursday, her sister and Sookram had an argument and he left the home, but they were in constant contact with each other.
She said Tuesday night started off as any other night. They watched television and all went to bed.
However, they were awakened by her younger sister’s screams around 10.05 pm. But at first, Rampersad did not know that she was in danger because her sister would scream for everything.
“If she see a spider she screaming. By the time my mother come out the bedroom, everybody was in the bedroom, they just see he chopping she and well, my mother try taking away the cutlass and my mother fall down with him, the deceased, and then he get up and he continue chopping she. After that, he run to the back of the house, nobody knew where he went because we was focusing on she because of the amount of blood. Blood was everywhere,” she recalled.
Suraj-Sookram’s mother Sylvan said her daughter’s screams jolted her out of her sleep and when she ran out the room, she saw Sookram chopping her daughter.
As Suraj-Sookram ran out of the house, she tried to help her.
“He was chopping my daughter and I try taking away the cutlass,” Sylvan said.
She was cut across her left palm and received seven stitches.
Rampersad said when the police arrived they went to the back of the house and found Sookram.
Meanwhile, she said her sister’s wounds were deep and she was in a semi-conscious state and losing a lot of blood.
“She was complaining that she had a lot of pain and she wanted some water,” she recalled.
When the ambulance arrived about 35 to 40 minutes later, Rampersad said the paramedics tried to contain the blood and was speaking to her to keep her conscious. She suffered chops to her upper back, right wrist and left arm, police said.
Rampersad said they had no clue when Sookram entered the house, but he was armed with the cutlass. While the children did not witness the entire incident, it was very traumatic for them.
“When you see something that horrific, you is be in total shock cause I was like I could not even breathe and I was just thinking the world of things going through my head at the moment,” she recalled.
Rampersad said they appeared to be a happy couple.
“They had an argument a couple days ago and he tell she that he feel he could leave and go and she tell him if that is what you want to do and that making you happy go ahead. But nobody knows what cause him to trigger off last night and do the act that he did.
“If he had something to say he would say it. If he had nothing to say he would make it into a joke. Most of the time, everything would be a joke that come out of his mouth. If he even quarrelling you would think it is a joke because of the way he would say it. He was a nice person like that,” Rampersad said.
She, however, advised couples experiencing problems in their relationship to seek help.
“If you know you are in an abusive relationship, I am not saying that she was in abusive relationship because she did not have a problem like that, or you see something going differently within your relationship seek outside help,” she said.
Sylvan said doctors at the San Fernando General Hospital told her that her daughter has a 50-50 chance of survival.
Coalition Against Domestic Violence speaks
Coalition Against Domestic Violence’s Sabrina Mowlah-Baksh says while David Sookram may not have been physically violent, he may have exhibited other forms of abuse that are taken less lightly such as financial, emotional, psychological or sexual.
Noting that abusive tendencies or behaviour will show up early in relationships, she said partners just have to know what they are.
“It’s easy to pass off abusive behaviour as normalised behaviour. Once these signs are recognised, interventions can be an option. One thing is certain, there must be zero tolerance of violence of any kind in any relationship. No relationship is ideal so if there are issues, there must be available support mechanisms starting with the family and community,” Mowlah-Baksh said yesterday.
Mowlah-Baksh added that there is no shame in seeking help.
She said unless domestic violence/intimate partner violence is tackled head-on by all and sundry, they will continue to deal with heart-breaking but infuriating situations like these.
Mowlah-Baksh also said the socio-economic impact of COVID-19 on families and households cannot be dismissed.
“There are a lot of volatile and vulnerable persons in our midst without any or inadequate support. We have to step up our responses as state, communities, civil society and bystanders. We are now beyond the blame and shame game. It’s about survival, security and well-being of families,” she said.
Women’s activist: Seek help
Diana Mahabir-Wyatt says hearing of yesterday’s attack sent “prickles “ from her head to her feet, as she thought about the effect this incident is going to have on the children for the rest of their lives. She advised that the family reach out to ChildLine or CADV for assistance and counselling.
“What is happening is that there is a lot of mental illness in Trinidad right now and it is resulting in breaches into personal relationships, in families. It is not just COVID, but it is that as well, it can be arguments against people who firmly believe vax and people who firmly don’t believe in vax, families are splitting up. It can be general stress, losing a job, arguments about just being able to support the family and men are feeling that very strong when they lose a job,” she said.
She said Sookram seemed to have just “lost it.”
“He just had like a mental blow out because if there was no evidence in the family that there was any kind of disruption between them normally for it to happen just suddenly like that to the point that it led to that extreme violence, I hate to make this sound as though it is not unusual, but it is getting more and more usual. Sometimes people don’t have the mental or emotional strength to restrain themselves.”
Encouraging couples experiencing relationship issues to seek help, she said there were several organisations, including Families In Action, Rape Crisis and CADV. For 2021, 33 women were murdered and for this year, as of yesterday, eight women were murdered.