RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Three of the four men chopped dur­ing a melee in Wood­land on Sun­day morn­ing re­main ward­ed in a sta­ble con­di­tion at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Two of them- Shaf­fick Mo­hammed, 28, of New Ex­ten­sion, Wood­land and An­drew Ram­rat­tan, 24, the nephew of Mo­hammed's ex-wife- who both suf­fered head in­juries are ex­pect­ed to un­der­go surgery.

How­ev­er, Mo­hammed's twin broth­er Sadiq Mo­hammed, who has been charged pre­vi­ous­ly with rape, has been dis­charged from the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

An­oth­er vil­lager, Ryan Jaimun­gal, 24, whose right hand was se­vere­ly maimed in the cut­lass at­tack, al­so re­mains ward­ed.

Since the chop­ping, rel­a­tives of both fam­i­lies have ex­pressed fear for their lives say­ing they were pray­ing that the chop­ping does not es­ca­late in­to fur­ther blood­shed.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Mo­hammed's sis­ter Haseena called on Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith to as­sign in­de­pen­dent, fair and un­bi­ased po­lice of­fi­cers to in­ves­ti­gate the case.

Ad­mit­ting that her broth­ers had crim­i­nal records, Haseen said she moved out of Wood­land be­cause of an on­go­ing feud with vil­lagers.

She said they were be­ing de­nied the op­por­tu­ni­ty of see­ing her broth­ers at the hos­pi­tal.

Mo­hammed's sis­ter Mum­taz said they were told Shaf­fick need­ed surgery on his head but this is not be­ing or­ga­nized im­me­di­ate­ly.

"They said there are 11 peo­ple be­fore him to get surgery so he has to wait. We can­not get to see him yet be­cause the po­lice are with him," Mum­taz said.

She ex­plained that Sadiq was in fear for his life.

"Right now we are be­ing ha­rassed and every­one is against us but those peo­ple came by my moth­er's house. They came where my broth­ers were sleep­ing and at­tack them and they de­fend­ed them­selves," she said.

But vil­lagers claimed the broth­ers are trou­ble­some.

A res­i­dent said, "The com­mu­ni­ty and vil­lagers are out­raged, dis­heart­ened, up­set, sad that you all did not get the two sides to the sto­ry. The com­mu­ni­ty has been deal­ing with these two broth­ers for years now.

Po­lice said the mat­ter was still un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion and sev­er­al charges will be laid pend­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.