RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA &

KAY­MARIE FLETCH­ER

The dri­ver want­ed in con­nec­tion with a fa­tal hit-and-run ac­ci­dent along the Solomon Ho­choy High­way in Freeport yes­ter­day morn­ing, was ex­pect­ed to sur­ren­der to po­lice last night.

This af­ter po­lice im­pound­ed a black Hyundai Ion­iq be­lieved to have been dri­ven by the sus­pect fol­low­ing a man­hunt that last­ed sev­er­al hours.

The hor­rif­ic crash killed Neil Bal­lai, 55, of Ec­cles Trace Spring Vil­lage, Val­sayn, and in­jured his cowork­er Ter­rence Ja­gasar, 34, of Cu­mu­to Main Road, Cu­mu­to. Both men were em­ployed with the Kiss Bak­ing Com­pa­ny.

The ac­ci­dent was cap­tured on a dash­cam by a dri­ver who was be­hind the ve­hi­cles and went vi­ral al­most im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter be­ing shared via X.

The dri­ver of the Ion­iq, who struck Bal­lai’s van, forc­ing it to veer and crash off the south­bound car­riage­way of the high­way, nev­er stopped. His cal­lous ac­tions trig­gered an out­pour­ing of dis­gust and anger among so­cial me­dia users who saw the video.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said at 6.45 am, Bal­lai, was dri­ving the Kiss van in com­pa­ny with Ja­gasar south along the high­way when, up­on reach­ing op­po­site the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, a black Hyundai Ion­iq car came speed­ing down the high­way and at­tempt­ed to over­take them in the left lane.

The speed­ing ve­hi­cle at­tempt­ed to over­take ve­hi­cles in the right lane and in do­ing so, clipped the rear of the Kiss truck. The truck veered off the road­way and land­ed on the dri­ver’s side, pin­ning Bal­lai un­der the wreck­age. He died on the spot.

The dri­ver of the Ion­iq kept go­ing and nev­er stopped to as­sist Bal­lai and Ja­gasar.

Bal­lai’s body was viewed by the Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer, Dr Go­sine. Ja­gasar sus­tained in­juries and was at­tend­ed to by Emer­gency Health Ser­vices per­son­nel be­fore be­ing trans­port­ed to the Cou­va Health Fa­cil­i­ty for fur­ther med­ical treat­ment.

Of­fi­cers from the Freeport High­way Pa­trol Unit, in­clud­ing WPC Brown, PC Fran­cis and PC Clarke, re­spond­ed to the scene, along­side per­son­nel from the Cou­va Po­lice Sta­tion.

Of­fi­cers from the Cou­va Fire De­part­ment al­so vis­it­ed the scene.

Bal­lai’s body was sent to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre where an au­top­sy is sched­uled. The Isuzu truck in­volved in the ac­ci­dent was con­veyed to the Cou­va Po­lice Sta­tion for fur­ther ex­am­i­na­tion.

At the fam­i­ly’s home in Val­sayn last evening, Bal­lai’s rel­a­tives were dis­traught as they pre­pared for his wake.

His cousin Shoma Ra­goo­nanan said: “This is the time he would re­turn home from work. The en­tire fam­i­ly is numb at this point. We were on-site and had to view the scene. We are still numb. It’s such a shock. Neil left ear­ly this morn­ing. We are wait­ing for him to come home, and we know he will not be com­ing home.”

Asked how they felt about the hit-and-run tragedy, Ra­goo­nanan said: “The fam­i­ly can­not ac­cept this. It was sense­less, to­tal­ly ridicu­lous, and not called for. Why was this per­son speed­ing? Why did this hap­pen to us?”

She de­scribed Bal­lai as one of the most care­ful dri­vers.

“His wife has mo­tion sick­ness, so he dri­ves care­ful­ly on the road. For this to hap­pen to us, it is not ac­cept­able at all,” Ra­goo­nanan said.

Bal­lai, she said, worked at Kiss for 17 years.

Asked whether the com­pa­ny had reached out to them, Ra­goo­nanan said: “The gen­er­al man­ag­er and dis­trict man­ag­er were on site com­fort­ing the fam­i­ly. They have reached out and they are here for us.”

She al­so said the dash­cam video had left them trou­bled.

“I am an­gry see­ing that video. You should have tak­en your time,” Ra­goo­nanan said, her vice trem­bling with emo­tion.

Al­so speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia last night, TTPS Road Safe­ty Co­or­di­na­tor Brent Bat­son con­firmed that the Icon­ic had been im­pound­ed. He said the 30-year-old dri­ver was al­so con­tact­ed and was ex­pect­ed to sur­ren­der to po­lice.

Bat­son com­mend­ed the dri­ver whose dash­cam video footage as­sist­ed the po­lice in solv­ing the case.

Asked about the im­por­tance of dash­cams, Bat­son said: “We are in sup­port of dri­vers in­vest­ing in front and rear dash cams. It will as­sist po­lice in con­firm­ing a re­port and it may help if they man­age to cap­ture crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty. We def­i­nite­ly sup­port peo­ple in­vest­ing in per­son­al dash­cams and feed­ing in­for­ma­tion to the po­lice so we can have bet­ter and ac­cu­rate in­for­ma­tion to pro­ceed with in­ves­ti­ga­tions.”

Bat­son al­so urged mo­torists to ex­er­cise care on the road and to re­port all ac­ci­dents.

Al­so con­tact­ed for com­ment Kiss Bak­ing Com­pa­ny gen­er­al man­ag­er Sunelle Boodram said the com­pa­ny will not be is­su­ing any me­dia state­ments about the in­ci­dent.

When asked about Bal­lai’s track record at the com­pa­ny, Boodram said: “We will not be is­su­ing any­thing out of re­spect for the fam­i­ly. We are li­ais­ing with the fam­i­ly and we will keep our com­mu­ni­ca­tion with them so I re­al­ly can­not say any­thing.”