Sascha Wil­son

The great-grand­moth­er of three-year-old Maria Sophia Khan, who drowned in a play pool at her Gas­par­il­lo home on Mon­day, has made a pas­sion­ate plea to moth­ers to pay at­ten­tion to their chil­dren at all times.

On Mon­day, the girl was found by her moth­er Mary Ma­habir in the pool, which was in the yard of their home at Ma­haraj Trace.

A po­lice re­port stat­ed that some­time af­ter 2 pm, the moth­er left the child in their apart­ment to use the wash­room, which is sit­u­at­ed in the yard. When she re­turned three to five min­utes lat­er, she saw her daugh­ter sub­merged in the pool.

There was about a foot and a half of wa­ter in the pool.

The moth­er lift­ed the child out of the wa­ter. The child was vom­it­ing and wa­ter was al­so com­ing out of her nose, the re­port stat­ed.

An am­bu­lance took Maria to the hos­pi­tal but doc­tors could not save her life.

The moth­er and daugh­ter lived down­stairs the home of Maria’s great grand­moth­er Karen Ma­habir.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed yes­ter­day, Karen said Maria’s moth­er re­turned on Mon­day night with the po­lice to col­lect her clothes but she was un­aware of her where­abouts since then.

Wip­ing away her tears, Karen re­called that she was up­stairs and had no idea what had tak­en place un­til the am­bu­lance ar­rived. She re­called see­ing the child ly­ing un­con­scious on a mat at the en­trance of the down­stairs apart­ment.

Ques­tion­ing how Maria could have drowned in about sev­en inch­es of wa­ter, she had a mes­sage for moth­ers.

“The on­ly ad­vice I could give is that moth­ers sup­pose to pay a hun­dred per cent at­ten­tion to their chil­dren. I mind eight of them. I had a big pool in the yard, why none of them eh drown? Be­cause if I not in the pool or not near it, I not let­ting them go in there. Look at that lit­tle bit of wa­ter in that pool, you telling me that child drown in that pool?” she lament­ed. Re­call­ing that Maria and her moth­er moved in with her last year, she said she was very close to the child.

“She did not de­serve to die so,” she sobbed.

Karen said Maria’s fa­ther, Roger Khan, was mur­dered al­most three years ago in Rio Claro.

An au­top­sy is ex­pect­ed to be done at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, Port-of-Spain to­day.

While Maria’s moth­er was ques­tioned by the po­lice and a state­ment record­ed, she is not in po­lice cus­tody, Guardian Me­dia learned.

Gas­par­il­lo po­lice are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

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