Farmer’s disembowelled body found in shallow grave

Jul 04, 2012 News

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For the second time in less than a week, Police on the East Coast of Demerara have dug up the body of a murdered individual from a shallow grave.
This time it is in the village of Foulis, where the badly mutilated body of 51-year-old Gangaram Bharat called ‘Gumpy’ was pulled from a three feet deep grave at the back of a yard in 14th Street.
The discovery was made yesterday around 17:00 hours by ranks from the Enmore Police Outpost, who had accompanied the dead man’s sister, Eunice Joe-Samuels, to the house.
Bharat’s body bore marks of a savage killing with several chops visible on both feet while he appeared to have been disembowelled.
The owners of the house, who police say are the prime suspects in the murder, reportedly packed up and fled the property sometime on Monday, after the dead man’s sister had been making enquiries about his whereabouts.
Investigators are working on the theory that Bharat was killed some time on Friday, when he was last seen imbibing with the occupants of the house behind which his body was found.
Three other persons from another house nearby, who were also seen drinking with Bharat, have been detained for questioning by the police.
As news of the shocking discovery circulated through the village, scores of residents converged on the scene, and they all expressed shock that something like that could have happened in their community.
While the police have not yet established a motive for the brutal killing, Bharat’s sister, who resides a few miles away in the village of Duch Four, is convinced that he was murdered for the piece of land on which he cultivates cash crops.
“He come by me Wednesday and he tell me some people want kill he fuh he farm and he lef and he come home Thursday.”
Joe-Samuels told this newspaper that on Saturday, she received a telephone call from her brother’s tenant, who informed her that he did not come home the previous night.
She said that after the tenants continued to call her repeatedly, she decided to leave her home and go to Foulis to investigate.
She made a missing person report at the Enmore Police Outpost after learning that he was last seen drinking in 14th Street.
She returned to the area every day after that, all the while making enquiries about her missing brother.
“Me so confuse, me deh up down, up down ah search all over de place, all over Dazzell Scheme me deh search,” the dead man’s sister said.
According to Joe-Samuels, the owner of the house where her brother’s body was found began acting strangely after he learnt that she was looking for Bharat.
Neighbours said that the man and his wife were seen leaving the house on Monday with packed suitcases.
“Yesterday (Monday) de man hear dat how me ah come with police and he go way. He tek he wife and go way,” the woman told Kaieteur News.
She said that her suspicions grew and yesterday she returned to the Enmore police with a view to getting a police rank to accompany her to search the tightly locked up property in question.
However it was not until after she sought the intervention of a senior officer at the Cove and John Police Station that two ranks accompanied her to the house.
Her suspicions reached fever pitch when upon entering the yard, she saw her brother’s hat in an abandoned car, which was parked there.
“Before me come, while in de car me tell de man ‘suppose me go in deh and see me brother tie up and bury in de yard’. De man say ‘nah seh so’. Me seh me feel so because me does know thing,” Joe-Samuels recalled.
She and the two police ranks eventually went to the back of the yard where they were hit with a strong pungent smell.
They then stumbled upon a pile of sand and mud which was covered with pieces of old wood and plastic and they immediately sensed that it was a shallow grave.
After sending Joe-Samuels outside, the ranks commenced digging and soon enough they came upon the body.
“At first we butt up with de foot and when we did more we see like dey buss open he belly. He guts been outside,” a source told this newspaper.
Such was the state of the body that it took police several hours to pull it from the three feet deep grave without damaging it.
It was eventually removed by undertakers from the Lyken Funeral Parlour and is expected to be the subject of a post mortem examination today.
Neighbours on both sides of the yard where the grave was discovered said they heard nothing strange that suggested that such a brutal murder had taken place next door. They also claimed that they got no foul smell although the grave was a mere three feet deep.
Investigators hope to track down and apprehend the owners of the property where the body was found in the hope of laying charges soon.
The discovery of Bharat’s body came five days after the decomposing body of Pamela Joan Durant was pulled from a shallow grave in an unfinished bathroom in her home at Melanie Damishana North.
Durant’s husband Gordon Leslie Durant was remanded to prison having been charged with her murder.

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