PREGNANT AND WIDOWED BY A HIT-AND-RUN DRIVER

Sep 24, 2018 News

“I still don’t believe that he is dead…”

“I can’t believe he is dead. I still don’t believe that my husband is dead because the man I saw lying motionless on the road did not look like my husband.”
Those were the words of a grieving and pregnant Roshini, who saw her husband being struck down and killed last Thursday.
Roshini is still unable to accept the fact that her spouse, 23 year old Chapil Dave Kumar, will not be coming home.

A pregnant Roshini

It was reported that Kumar and Roshini were waiting for a taxi in front of Tiwari Drug Store, Uitvlugt, West Coast Demerara, when he was struck down by a speeding driver of a white Toyota 192.
Roshini revealed that she and Kumar were married for over a year and are expecting their first child. Kumar has a three-year-old daughter from a previous relationship.
“He was super excited for the baby to born. We had so many things planned and all this just shattered in a matter of minutes.”
She recalled that her husband had come home at around nine that night and they decided to purchase a meal at a Chinese restaurant because he was hungry.
After purchasing the meal, Roshini, her husband and another relative crossed the road in the vicinity of Uitvlugt.
But then Kumar turned back to purchase a packet of cigarettes.
He bought the cigarettes, and was attempting to cross the road again when a white vehicle, which was travelling at a fast rate, struck him. The driver never stopped.
“After I saw what happened, I ran over the road and I started to scream and I told him to wake up. I still don’t believe that my husband is dead because the man I saw lying motionless on the road does not look like my husband.”
The woman said what’s more hurtful is that her husband would have celebrated his twenty-fourth birthday last Saturday.
“Just imagine me and him were in bed and we had so many plans for his birthday. I was even going to surprise him in bed with a cake at midnight but he didn’t live to see his birthday.
“I honestly don’t know how I will live without him because I was living for him. He has a heart of gold. He was a good husband and a good person to everyone.”
The broken-hearted Roshini said that while at the station, she spoke to the driver who police said admitted to causing her husband’s death.
Like another relative had previously claimed, she said the driver was “smiling and laughing” while she was in tears.
“It’s like if he’s not sorry for what happened.”

Killed: Chapil Dave Kumar with his wife Roshini, in happier times.

And she said that the driver and his family are yet to give her their sympathy.
“They haven’t apologised for my loss. They are only talking about ‘settling the matter.’ No one said sorry.”
Thanks to social media postings, police were able to track down the driver who fled the scene after killing Kumar.
The driver turned himself in to Traffic ranks at the Leonora Police Station around noon on Saturday, shortly after his car was found abandoned near a rice-field at Vergenoegen, East Bank Essequibo.
Police took statements from the suspect as well as from Roshini, who is the main eyewitness.
A police release stated that the 25-year-old driver “surrendered to police and has since admitted to his involvement in the accident, claiming that the pedestrian (deceased) ran into the path of his vehicle.
“The vehicle PKK 7495, which is registered to a resident of Parika was found to be tinted and several of its documents expired.
Among the charges likely to be instituted are causing death by dangerous driving; unlicensed motor vehicle; uninsured motor vehicle; tinted motor vehicle; failure to stop after an accident and failure to render assistance.
The driver is expected to be arraigned at the Leonora Magistrate’s Court today.
Kaieteur News understands that the suspect’s white Toyota AT 192 was stashed between two trailers and was covered with a blue tarpaulin.
The number plates had been removed but ranks located documents that identified the licence number and vehicle owner.
There are reports that he had attempted to have the vehicle repaired, but a body-shop owner refused to work on the car after learning of its possible link to the hit-and-run accident at Uitvlugt.
It is believed that after failing to have the vehicle repaired, the suspect stashed it at Vergenoegen, where police and an uncle of the dead man found it.
Kumar’s family has lauded individuals who kept posting information on social media for helping them and police to track the suspect, and for forcing the individual to surrender.
Kumar was said to be a devoted, hard-working family man who sold perfumes and other haberdasheries for a living.