by RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Urg­ing mourn­ers not to avenge the death of Dr Rudrade­va Shar­ma, child­hood friend Aaron Par­tap yes­ter­day called on cit­i­zens to for­give the kid­nap­pers who snuffed out Shar­ma’s life.

Shar­ma who was kid­napped with an­oth­er doc­tor, Dr Vi­jay Naidoo, died af­ter the car they were trav­el­ling in flipped 12 times be­fore crash­ing off the Solomon Ho­choy High­way Ex­ten­sion last week. Three kid­nap­pers were in­jured while a fourth walked away un­scathed.

Naidoo told rel­a­tives that it was be­cause of Shar­ma that he sur­vived the crash as Shar­ma shield­ed him from im­pact.

Par­tap who stud­ied with Shar­ma at Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege told mourn­ers that Shar­ma nev­er be­lieved in hate, re­venge or mal­ice. He said: “Rudy was very spir­i­tu­al and he be­lieved that we should leave mat­ters in the hands of God who is the judge of every­thing.”

He told mourn­ers they should for­give the per­pe­tra­tors, adding that every­one should pray for the na­tion. Founder of the UNC, Bas­deo Pan­day and his wife Oma, who were close to Shar­ma’s par­ents at­tend­ed the fu­ner­al but Pan­day said he could find no words to com­fort the fam­i­ly at this time.

Shar­ma’s sis­ter Renu­ka who de­liv­ered the eu­lo­gy said her broth­er was a deep thinker who had a pas­sion for Math­e­mat­ics and Sci­ence. She said he was award­ed the Aus­tralian Math­e­mat­ics Olympiad in 1996 and the Cana­di­an Math­e­mat­ics Olympiad in 1997.

“He was a skil­ful and self-taught gui­tarist. He had his own mi­cro­scope, tele­scope and sci­ence set. He al­ways car­ried pen and pa­per in which he wrote his en­cod­ed mes­sages. He worked in In­ter­nal Med­i­cine and in the In­fec­tious Dis­ease Unit. He loved Kung fu movies and en­gaged in deep med­i­ta­tion,” she added.

Spe­cial­ist con­sul­tant in in­ter­nal med­i­cine Dr Neil Bhag­wan­dass said Shar­ma was a dili­gent doc­tor who al­ways worked ex­tra hours and was com­mit­ted to keep­ing his pa­tients com­fort­able. Bhag­wan­dass told Shar­ma’s fam­i­ly that all 170 plus doc­tors were stand­ing with them in their time of grief. Un­cle, Chan­dresh Shar­ma said for five years, Shar­ma worked every day in the hos­pi­tal with­out tak­ing a sin­gle day off.

“His work­load was im­mense and he nev­er fal­tered. In fact, it was not un­com­mon for him to take mon­ey out of his own pock­ets to give to his pa­tients so they could trav­el home or buy med­i­cine,” Shar­ma said.

For­mer Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona al­so praised Shar­ma for his com­mit­ment to sav­ing pa­tient’s lives, not­ing that Shar­ma death was a great loss to the med­ical fra­ter­ni­ty.

“We are wal­low­ing in ven­om, hurt and pain over his death. We have to do bet­ter in T&T. We have to make a change and cre­ate a hu­man rev­o­lu­tion in our lives to make T&T a bet­ter place. We are head­ing for dis­as­ter,” Car­mona said.

He said Shar­ma’s lega­cy of ser­vice to hu­man­i­ty and com­pas­sion should be em­u­lat­ed by cit­i­zens. Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar who al­so spoke at the fu­ner­al broke down in tears.

“I’m hear­ing all kinds of sto­ries go­ing on but we must nev­er for­get that Rudra was the vic­tim of a heinous crime,” she said. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Shar­ma did every­thing right. He stud­ied hard, ex­celled in his field and made his par­ents proud and while he saved the lives of many in the hos­pi­tal work­ing tire­less­ly dur­ing staff short­ages, his life was tak­en away by crim­i­nals.

“Did he de­serve this death? That is why we mourn more. How can you take this child away? What com­fort can we give to par­ents? What do we do?

“A child torn out of your womb, what do we do. Every day chil­dren are mur­dered. In the South, North, East and West we are all cry­ing. The change must come. We have to make that change to get the coun­try go­ing,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

She added: “I’m not about pol­i­tics now. I’m not about that. To­day we grieve, we cry but as we leave to­day let us nev­er say Rudra went in vain. We must band to­geth­er and work to­geth­er,” she added.

Fol­low­ing the fu­ner­al rites, Shar­ma was cre­at­ed at the Mos­qui­to Creek Shore of Peace.

Po­lice not baf­fled

The Po­lice Ser­vice said yes­ter­day that it has not changed the course of its in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the death of Shar­ma. In a state­ment is­sued on Sun­day, the TTPS said that ac­cord­ing to Act­ing Deputy Com­mis­sion­er (Op­er­a­tions) Jayson Forde, en­quiries by the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions have thus far, con­tin­ued to sup­port the ear­li­er ac­count giv­en by the TTPS.

The state­ment said that the TTPS is in­ves­ti­gat­ing a re­port that “both doc­tors went to Pleas­antville, pur­chased a quan­ti­ty of mar­i­jua­na, then pro­ceed­ed to Rush­worth Street Ex­ten­sion, where they parked the ve­hi­cle and be­gan smok­ing their mar­i­jua­na.

It added that : “Whilst smok­ing, they were ac­cost­ed by three men who robbed them and tied them up. One of the men, ac­com­pa­nied by his two ac­com­plices and the bound­ed doc­tors, drove the doc­tor’s ve­hi­cle north along the Solomon Ho­choy High­way.

“Up­on reach­ing the area of Macaulay, the ve­hi­cle lost con­trol and crashed. All par­ties on board were in­jured. One of the doc­tors and one of the rob­bers sub­se­quent­ly died.”

Dr Shar­ma, 38, of La Ro­maine, died when the ve­hi­cle crashed around 1.50 am on Wednes­day 15th Jan­u­ary. Dr Naidoo, 37, of Palmiste and the three sus­pects were tak­en to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for treat­ment. One of the sus­pects, iden­ti­fied as Akeem Ma­rine, 19, of La­dy Hailes Av­enue, San Fer­nan­do, suc­cumbed to his in­juries. Po­lice say he was a known firearm of­fend­er.

Dr Naidoo has since been dis­charged, while the two oth­er sus­pects are ward­ed at hos­pi­tal.