RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Hours af­ter Ste­fan Khan­dan and Giselle Ougrah were found dead in their Pe­nal apart­ment in what po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing as a sus­pect­ed mur­der-sui­cide, Khan­dan’s sis­ter ap­pealed to the pub­lic not to judge her broth­er sole­ly on the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing his death, while ac­knowl­edg­ing that the cou­ple’s re­la­tion­ship had be­come in­creas­ing­ly tox­ic.

Khan­dan, 27, a labour­er of Bo­caud Trace, Pe­nal Rock Road, and Ougrah, 23, of Tor­rib Trace, New Grant, had been in­volved in a tur­bu­lent re­la­tion­ship for more than a year. The cou­ple be­gan rent­ing an apart­ment at Sun­dars­ingh Trace, Pe­nal, about a month ago.

Ac­cord­ing to her moth­er Fer­oza Ali, Ougrah packed her be­long­ings and left Khan­dan last Mon­day. How­ev­er, she said Khan­dan vis­it­ed the fam­i­ly’s home on Wednes­day and in­vit­ed Ougrah to din­ner.

The cou­ple were not seen or heard from again.

Con­cern grew on Fri­day night when one of Ougrah’s rel­a­tives vis­it­ed the apart­ment at Sun­dars­ingh Trace, Batchyia Vil­lage, Pe­nal. Af­ter re­ceiv­ing no re­sponse, a rel­a­tive checked the prop­er­ty and re­port­ed­ly saw Khan­dan hang­ing from a rafter while Ougrah lay on a blood-soaked bed.

Po­lice lat­er forced open the apart­ment and dis­cov­ered both bod­ies in an ear­ly state of de­com­po­si­tion.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors re­cov­ered a black knife mea­sur­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly ten inch­es dur­ing pro­cess­ing of the scene.

The Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer pro­nounced both dead and or­dered that the bod­ies be re­moved for post-mortem ex­am­i­na­tions.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Ougrah’s moth­er said her fam­i­ly had known Khan­dan for years, but she nev­er ex­pect­ed her daugh­ter to be­come in­volved with him.

Ali said Ougrah at­tend­ed St Stephen’s Col­lege, earned 16 CSEC and CAPE sub­jects, op­er­at­ed her own hair sa­lon in Princes Town and had re­cent­ly qual­i­fied for a youth en­tre­pre­neur­ship pro­gramme.

De­scrib­ing her daugh­ter as hard­work­ing and deeply in­volved in church ac­tiv­i­ties, Ali said Ougrah had ex­pe­ri­enced an on-again, off-again re­la­tion­ship with Khan­dan af­ter mov­ing in with him more than a year ago.

Khan­dan’s sis­ter, Sta­cyann Khan­dan, said the re­la­tion­ship was marked by re­peat­ed ar­gu­ments, break-ups and rec­on­cil­i­a­tions. She claimed her broth­er of­ten ob­ject­ed to the way Ougrah dressed and to some of the peo­ple with whom she as­so­ci­at­ed.

“Hon­est­ly speak­ing, she would do cer­tain things that would ir­ri­tate him,” Sta­cyann said.

She said she fre­quent­ly en­cour­aged her broth­er to work through the cou­ple’s prob­lems.

“I said, ‘You can work things out. Talk to her,’” she re­called.

Sta­cyann said she al­so spoke with Ougrah, but ten­sions be­tween them even­tu­al­ly es­ca­lat­ed to the point where Ougrah blocked her on so­cial me­dia.

De­spite the cou­ple’s dif­fi­cul­ties, Sta­cyann said she hoped her broth­er would not be re­mem­bered on­ly for the trag­ic events now un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“Every­body has their faults. I love my broth­er, and I know he was pro­voked be­cause he is one who will take and take un­til he ex­plodes,” she said.

How­ev­er, Khan­dan’s fa­ther, Tony Khan­dan, de­scribed a re­la­tion­ship that had be­come in­creas­ing­ly volatile.

Phys­i­cal al­ter­ca­tions

He re­called wit­ness­ing phys­i­cal al­ter­ca­tions be­tween the cou­ple while they were liv­ing at his home on Bo­caud Trace.

“He hit­ting the girl, the girl hit­ting him. Two of them hit­ting one an­oth­er and fight­ing,” he said.

Tony said the ar­gu­ments some­times turned phys­i­cal and, on one oc­ca­sion, in­volved a knife. The sit­u­a­tion prompt­ed him to ask the cou­ple to leave his home.

“I say, ‘Not here, not here, not in my place.’”

De­scrib­ing his son as “ig­no­rant” and a “hard weed smok­er,” Tony said there was a time when Khan­dan at­tempt­ed to con­front him phys­i­cal­ly as well.

Ac­cord­ing to Tony, many of the cou­ple’s dis­putes stemmed from jeal­ousy and ac­cu­sa­tions of in­fi­deli­ty.

“Small thing they al­ways ar­gu­ing for. She ac­cus­ing him of talk­ing to girls and he ac­cus­ing her of talk­ing with men,” he said.

Tony said he last saw his son on Mon­day when Khan­dan vis­it­ed to help with work around the house.

He no­ticed that his son ap­peared thin­ner and trou­bled.

Re­call­ing their con­ver­sa­tion, Tony said he asked Khan­dan how he was cop­ing.

“Dad­dy, I have a re­al prob­lem with that girl,” his son re­port­ed­ly replied.

Tony said he urged him to re­turn home, but Khan­dan nev­er re­spond­ed.

“That was the last time I saw him,” he said.

Po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing, with au­top­sies ex­pect­ed to help de­ter­mine the ex­act cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the deaths.