Eight thousand dollars – more?  Or a cellphone?
After talking to dozens of persons on the West Coast of Demerara, I was so disgusted and angry at the avariciousness of a family who preferred to see young and vulnerable children in the family left helpless in the hands of merciless beasts  whose bestial actions against the elder child they were fully aware, as they were to the inherent and impending dangers to the younger child. Sheema Mangar’s mother and brother visited me in my office on Tuesday last and when they left, I bent my head down on my desk and wept for the sheer wanton waste of a beloved, beautiful and valuable young life, which was brutally snuffed out for greed of a cellphone.

NEESA
During last week’s press conference in the boardroom of the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security, when Minister Priya Manickchand reported the recommended punishment for the culpable officers whose negligence precipitated an ethos of insouciance in their deliverables on their mandate as identified by their job descriptions in the Child Welfare and Protection Agency, the air in the Ministry’s boardroom was redolent of so much gratification and satisfaction that made me realize that, even though Guyana’s media operatives are routinely exposed to much of the seamier side of the human condition, they have not become callous to the extent that the brutal, senseless and tragic death of Neesa Gopaul did not affect them deeply.

But what shocked everyone to the core was when the revelations of the report stemming from the investigations revealed that the grandparents had returned the children, who had been placed in their care by the Ministry, to the hell from which they had been rescued by the Ministry because they contended that they needed and deserved more than eight thousand dollars a week to take care of the children, because the father had left much wealth.  

The bountiful largesse that he had expended on a once impecunious family and rescued them from penury had ceased at his death, and the immeasurable inheritance that he had left was being diverted elsewhere, generating much anger in those who were no longer benefiting, so the children became mere statistics in the wrangle and tug-of-war for wealth by two parties greedy for the assets earned by the children’s father and left by him to ensure their future security and wellbeing.

The Ministry officials were strangers doing a job, but in the natural order, grandchildren are the heartland of grandparents. 

Even if a cent was not being provided for their keep, those children should have been kept and nurtured, because love should and would have found a way – if love for the children had prevailed instead of love and greed for riches that they had not earned. 

They are just as culpable as their daughter for the eventual fate of Neesa, because they knew what their daughter and her paramour were doing to the child and they had access to Neesa’s paternal relatives, who were kept away from the children after the death of the father, but who are generous and loving people with much resources of their own, enough that they did not need to covet the children’s inheritance, for which Neesa was killed, by acts of omission and commission.

Although the officers of the Agency were culpable through their negligence, the action of the grandparents of returning the children to the hell they lived in, and the inaction by maternal aunts and uncles – all for considerations of money, was barbaric, callous, inhumane, coldhearted, cruel, bestial, inhuman, sordid, squalid, all reflective of foetid, squalorous minds.

So how much was Neesa’s life worth?  According to the grandparents, much more than $8000 per week, and they certainly would not, and did not settle for less. But now Neesa is dead, because the ransom was not paid.  However, today there is eagerness to keep Neesa’s baby sister, whom she always tried to protect, because that little girl is now the sole owner of much resource, and the price may just be right – to save her life, or to take it?

SHEEMA
When Radhika Thakoor, Sheema’s mother walked into my office I was surprised, because she is a very young woman; but when one looks into her eyes there is a century of suffering.

And the agony from the loss of this beloved sister and best friend has pooled into an unfathomable and immeasurable depth of grief in the eyes of 14-year-old Jason Mangar, and I looked at these two precious members of Sheema’s family and was lost for words, which anyone who knows me knows is a phenomenon.

She was a member of the Better Hope Assemblies of God church and was also a Sunday School teacher. Like Neesa, she also was a former student of Queen’s College – and the senseless and brutal loss within weeks of these two lovely young women, each with lives and futures full of promise – for themselves, for their families, for their communities, and for their country, still blots the soul of this nation.

Sheema’s mom, Radhika Thakoor, and dad, Lalbachan  Mangar, were neighbours who attended the Better Hope Assemblies of God church as children and fell in love with each other as teenagers. 

Radhika’s parents were separated and both sets of families were extremely poor and it was unthinkable for them to have a wedding to which church members could not have been invited and they certainly could not have afforded the expense of a wedding, so it was a natural progression for them to move in together without formalities.

Sheema was born when Radhika was merely fifteen years old and her husband a couple of years older.  Lalbachan was a carpenter, but those were the days before the establishment of the Government’s housing schemes and the construction boom, so work was scarce and ill-paid when available.

In order to make ends meet, Radhika was forced to set up a tray from which she sold confectionery and bit by bit the little family built a life, with the promise to themselves of a wedding when they could afford it.

Radhika said that although they were still teenagers and life was a tremendous struggle, theirs was a very happy family.

Sheema was the centre of their world until she was six years old, then baby Jason came along to complete the family unit.  From the very first Sheema was enthralled by her baby brother and, like Neesa was with her little sister Maria, Sheema was Jay’s protector and second mother.

They lived contentedly in their cramped quarters, where the two siblings shared a small room, and saved to build a home on land that they were allocated in 2004 by the government at Agriculture Road. 
Over the years the couple had, while not depriving their children of necessities, scrimped and saved and deprived themselves of everything except the most basic needs to build a confectionary business while simultaneously ensuring that their children received the best education possible.

However, the floods of 2005 wiped them out, destroying their stock in the confectionery stall in the market, their furnishings and appliances in their home, and material they had accumulated at their houselot where Lalbachan had already laid the foundation for their new home.

It was a bitter blow, because they had to begin again from scratch. However, they did not despair but persevered and gradually emerged from the financial crisis until they had once more begun progressing.

In the meantime, Sheema was not letting them down, emerging as a top student throughout her academic studies, obtaining a place in Queen’s College, where she wrote ten subjects at the CXC exams and obtained seven distinctions, with two grade ones and one grade two passes.

While awaiting the results of her examinations, she simultaneously studied Business Administration at the School of the Nations and Information Technology at Computer World. 

She was also pursuing studies in accountancy at a private institution when she obtained a job at Demerara Bank at age 17, and had just received a promotion when she was wantonly killed.

Radhika said that paying Sheema’s travel and school-related expenses, as well as her extraneous studies and examinations used up all their resources.

However, when Sheema started to work she undertook her own and her brother’s education and related expenses, freeing up her parents’ income so they could, at long last – three years ago, concentrate on building their dream home, which Lalbachan did himself, with assistance from a few hired helpers.

Finally, six months prior to Sheema’s death, the family moved into their spacious and comfortable home, but the brother and sister’s closeness did not diminish, despite having their own rooms.

Jay, initially responding in monosyllables, with head downcast, mouth quivering, and tears intermittently pooling in his eyes, eventually opened up and spoke of fun times shared with his loving sister – and the tentative smile radiating from the corners of his mouth as he spoke was like a sunray after a cloudy day.

He said that every night was study night for them, except for Friday nights, when Sheema would purchase a video, mainly comedy, on her way from work, enquire from him what their mother had cooked, then, if they were not pleased with their mother’s menu, she would buy chicken at Church’s and the two would settle down to enjoying their movie and fried chicken when she arrived home. 

She spent all her spare money on providing Jay with amenities that she had had to go without during her growing-up years, and the last purchase that she had made for him was a desk to facilitate his studies.

Radhika said that their education was curtailed very early and that they were learning from their children’s studies.

She smilingly reminisced on fun times with the family as Jay loved to tease his big sister.  She said that her children were each other’s best friend, because Sheema had no time for extracurricular activities. 

From work she travelled straight home and on Sundays she attended Church and taught Sunday School. She was a perfect role model whose high standards her baby brother emulated, as did her charges at the Sunday school, for whom she often purchased treats, especially at Christmas.

Sheema was robbed of two cellphones prior to the robbery that robbed her of her life.  Once someone picked her purse in a bus, and once someone snatched her bag by Stabroek Market Square, where she had gone to make a purchase for her mother.

The Blackberry phone for which she was ruthlessly killed was a purchase made from a colleague at work, for which she was paying on monthly terms. 

As Radhika said, Sheema sacrificed and paid for her phone “little by little” and because she was a soft person who could harm no-one she had no concept that anyone would run her over with a car for her own cellphone, and that trust in humanity took her life.
Radhika is very agitated that it has been over two months since the police (allegedly) found bloody fabric similar to Sheema’s uniform on the hood of a car and that it has not yet been sent for testing. 

She is fearful that her daughter would not receive justice but is prepared to leave the matter in the hands of the Lord that Sheema had served and trusted all her life.

It was daylight on a very busy street when Sheema was run over and dragged, screaming in agony and fear, for over a block.  There are persons who saw what happened.  What has happened to the Guyanese spirit of humanity that no-one seems to care enough to pinpoint the killer of Sheema?

Sheema Mangar and Neesa Gopaul – one was killed for a Blackberry phone and one was killed for greed of her inheritance.  This is the price that the killers have put on the lives of these two brilliant and ambitious young girls, and these killers need to be shown no mercy by the justice system in Guyana. 

The families of these children need justice and closure.

PULL QUOTE:
Sheema Mangar and Neesa Gopaul – one was killed for a Blackberry phone and one was killed for greed of her inheritance.  This is the price that the killers have put on the lives of these two brilliant and ambitious young girls, and these killers need to be shown no mercy by the justice system in Guyana.  The families of these children need justice and closure.