RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The fu­ner­al of teenage dancer Jed­da Be­har­ry has been post­poned af­ter an au­top­sy failed to de­ter­mine the cause of her death.

Be­har­ry died un­ex­pect­ed­ly on Au­gust 14 af­ter re­port­ed­ly be­com­ing ill while at a res­i­dence in Ben Lomond Vil­lage, Gas­par­il­lo.

Po­lice said fol­low­ing the post-mortem ex­am­i­na­tion, blood and oth­er sam­ples were sub­mit­ted to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre for fur­ther analy­sis. In­ves­ti­ga­tors are await­ing the re­sults, which are ex­pect­ed to as­sist in de­ter­min­ing the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing her death.

At this stage, po­lice said foul play is not sus­pect­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to in­ves­ti­ga­tors, Be­har­ry was at the res­i­dence when she sud­den­ly be­came ill. She re­port­ed­ly ex­pe­ri­enced dif­fi­cul­ty breath­ing and com­plained of se­vere chest pains.

Emer­gency as­sis­tance was sought and car­diopul­monary re­sus­ci­ta­tion (CPR) was ad­min­is­tered be­fore she was tak­en to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

She was pro­nounced dead at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 11.46 pm.

Be­har­ry was the daugh­ter of Shaun and Fazi­da Be­har­ry and the sis­ter of Samir Be­har­ry. Her fu­ner­al had been sched­uled for Fri­day at Pointe-a-Pierre, fol­lowed by bur­ial at the Lums­den Ceme­tery, but fam­i­ly mem­bers lat­er post­poned the ser­vice pend­ing fur­ther in­for­ma­tion.

A mem­ber of the Trinidad Mul­ti­cul­tur­al Dance Com­pa­ny, Be­har­ry rep­re­sent­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go in­ter­na­tion­al­ly and trav­elled to Pana­ma with her moth­er in 2024.

Her pas­sion for dance be­gan at the age of five when she par­tic­i­pat­ed in Mas­tana Ba­har. Over the years, she com­pet­ed in nu­mer­ous In­di­an dance com­pe­ti­tions and rep­re­sent­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go at re­gion­al events.

Known for her per­for­mances in tra­di­tion­al Bol­ly­wood and clas­si­cal In­di­an dance, she was al­so recog­nised for blend­ing con­tem­po­rary in­flu­ences in­to her rou­tines.

Be­har­ry was a stu­dent of the School of In­ter­na­tion­al Trav­el and Lan­guages (SITAL) and was ac­tive­ly in­volved in teach­ing dance in the Gas­par­il­lo com­mu­ni­ty, where she was well known and ad­mired. She had re­cent­ly been prepar­ing for an­oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ty and was ex­pect­ed to trav­el to Italy in the near fu­ture.