Thir­teen days af­ter he was beat­en un­con­scious, doused with gaso­line and set on fire, 40-year-old Anil Kow­lessar suc­cumbed to his in­juries on Sat­ur­day while ward­ed in the In­ten­sive Care Unit of the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

A sus­pect is cur­rent­ly as­sist­ing po­lice in their in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

A po­lice re­port stat­ed that short­ly be­fore mid­night on No­vem­ber 12 while at Boissiere Trace in Gran Cou­va, Kow­lessar and the sus­pect, who is a cousin, had an ar­gu­ment which es­ca­lat­ed in­to a fight.

Kow­lessar was bad­ly beat­en and slammed in­to a wall, which left him un­con­scious.
While on the ground, the sus­pect doused him with gaso­line and lit him on fire. Oth­er rel­a­tives ex­tin­guished the fire and took him to hos­pi­tal, where he was ward­ed for first-de­gree burns.

Speak­ing at her home in Bal­main, Cou­va, yes­ter­day, Kow­lessar’s moth­er, An­gela, who could not hold back her tears, said they were at a fam­i­ly birth­day cel­e­bra­tion when the in­ci­dent oc­curred.
She said the two were ar­gu­ing over a van that was al­leged­ly loaned to Kow­lessar by the sus­pect.

“I was sleep­ing when I was awak­ened and told that my big son was killed. I say no, al­lyuh don’t know what al­lyuh say­ing? Is when the man come up, take out a gas con­tain­er and a cut­lass, he telling me he now kill my big son,” An­gela said as she broke down in tears.

“Christ­mas com­ing up and Anil not here. He was the life of the par­ty. He would come and hug every­body and make sure every­body ok. He was such a nice child and grew up to be a nice man,” she added.

An­gela said on Sat­ur­day morn­ing, close rel­a­tives were called to the hos­pi­tal to vis­it Kow­lessar as he was not do­ing well. He died at 4.45 pm.

At the house in Gran Cou­va where Kow­lessar lived, a woman claimed Kow­lessar’s girl­friend had moved out and said she was un­sure about her where­abouts.
A woman al­so al­leged­ly sent threats via cell phone to Kow­lessar’s at­tack­er when he re­quest­ed that he re­turn the van.

Po­lice sources said in­ves­ti­ga­tors are now wait­ing on the re­sults of an au­top­sy to be con­duct­ed at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre soon.