RONALD Pooran, father of accident victim Deokie Pooran, suddenly dropped dead at his worksite last Saturday morning. He was fifty-five years old at the time of his death. He had been ailing for quite some time before his demise. His daughter’s sudden death may have contributed to this latest tragedy to devastate the little Pooran family within months.
Twenty-one-year-old Deokie was killed on 17 September 2010 by a ruthless truck driver who had no qualms about simultaneously speeding, overtaking and using his cellphone, all while driving his heavy-duty truck on the railway embankment; despite the latent threat his actions posed to other more vulnerable road-users.
In trying to overtake a car without reducing his speed, while still on his cellphone, the truck driver slammed into Malinia Zameer and her four-year-old son, Kisan, badly injuring them before crushing the life out of Deokie, who was patiently waiting at the corner to cross the road on her way to work at Budget Supermarket. She was approximately halfway between her home and her place of employment – mere yards away from both locations; but she never again reached her worksite; and she only once more went home to her family – in a coffin in transit to the cemetery.
The  only substantial contributor to her impoverished family of four, Deokie was responsible for most of the family’s expenses, because her father was ailing and could only work as an ill-paid watchman and her mother, Carmen Itwaru, is a housewife who cannot circumnavigate the corridors of the wider society, to which she had never faced exposure and of which she seems very afraid, especially during this period of intense depression as she mourns her decent and dependable daughter. Deokie’s baby sister depended on her for most of her educational accessories.
The truck driver’s wife is a policewoman at the Vigilance Police Station, where the report was made; and the family is getting the royal runaround to get justice for the loss of their beloved daughter from the system. The police traditionally and blatantly close ranks to protect their own, as was recently witnessed when an eleven-year-old juvenile was raped and brutalized by a policeman, as in many other instances. The Police Force is a microcosm of the wider society – and the Guyanese society has become very lawless.
The case was originally scheduled for November, but the policeman never turned up; and this begs the question of why he was out of prison in the first place after having deprived a human being of her life with his callous and deliberate actions.
It was his choice to speed on the road with a heavy truck. It was his choice to overtake a car without due care or consideration for pedestrians and other road-users while speeding, and it was his choice to use a cellphone while driving, all criminal actions that led to the death of a worthier human being.
Due to his absence the case was postponed to February 10, or so Deokie’s poor and grieving parents were told. However, when the case was not called up Deokie’s parents were advised to take their grievance to the Police Complaints Authority, presided over by Justice Cecil Kennard, by whom they were informed that the case had instead been called on the  January 6, 2011 and, due to the case jacket not having been found, was further postponed to May of this year.
Deokie was no super-achiever; but she stood out in these times of rude, selfish and disrespectful young people. She was an exemplary daughter to her poor parents, a “humble and good worker” to her employers, and a superb role model to her little sister.
Her father did not live long enough to see whether justice would be served for his daughter, whose killer goes on trial in May. What may have exacerbated his condition is the hopelessness engendered by the direction the case has taken so far. People do die of grief. Currently, Pooran’s wife and Deokie’s mother, Carmen Itwaru, is prostrate with grief and has sunk into a deep, fathomless pool of depression.