Jealous husband commits suicide after torching house

Nov 10, 2013 News

…six homeless

By Romila Boodram
A jealous reputed husband committed suicide yesterday after setting his wife’s Lot 85 Industry, East Coast Demerara house on fire around 10:30 hrs.
Vinod Narine, 55, succumbed at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), two hours after he reportedly told investigators that he consumed a mixture of rat poison and gramoxone.

Tenant: A devastated Nalini Chintaman

Kaieteur News was told that Narine may have used kerosene to burn the building since his step son, Shivanand Gossai, told investigators that he saw the now dead man with the flammable liquid the night before the incident.
Narine shared the upper flat of the two-storey house with his reputed wife, Debbie Gossai, 32, and her two sons, 15-year-old Mahendra Gossai and Shivanand.
The bottom flat of the building was occupied by their tenant, Nalini Chintaman, her husband, Clarence Dennett and their three-year-old daughter.
Neighbours said that Narine, a part-time taxi driver and his wife, a domestic worker, shared an abusive relationship for the past eight years.
The court granted a restraining order for Narine to stay away from his reputed wife. It is unclear when the restraining order was granted.
Yesterday, at the hospital, the 32-year-old woman would only say that she was at work when she received a call from a neighbour who informed her about the incident.
While her reputed husband was battling for his life in the hospital’s emergency room, the woman was heard expressing fear for her life. She questioned whether he will escape from the hospital and harm her.
Kaieteur News was told that last Thursday the police were called after the couple was seen fighting.
“Last night (Friday) he was running her on the road to stab her. He catch her and juk she two times in her back but she ain’t go to the hospital because the wounds ain’t so big and she frighten he,” a neighbour said.
Narine was described by neighbours as an alcoholic and jealous man who would at times beat his young wife while she slept.
The tenant, Chintaman, who has been residing at the now destroyed building for the past two years, said she cannot put a figure to her losses. “I had everything in my house, everything.”
Chintaman told Kaieteur News that she is not surprised that Narine burnt the building and committed suicide.
“He does always say he will burn the house down so I am not surprised.”

What is left of the house

She added that for the past few months she has been looking for another place to rent but failed to find one. “Every day the two of them does fight. The other day he was beating her at 02:00 in the morning.”
Investigations are ongoing.