Suspect says victims were fowl thieves

A POULTRY farmer’s assistant, who is at the centre of a fatal shooting incident that occurred at the Port Mourant backlands last Wednesday, was arrested early Sunday morning at Eversham Village, Corentyne, where he had been hiding at a relative’s home. That relative has also been detained for questioning.

Following his arrest, the suspect, who assists in rearing poultry at the Port Mourant backlands, claimed to have fired the shots to scare away fowl thieves whom he alleged to have been caught ‘red handed’ in his employer’s pen. He claimed to be unaware that his shots had been fatal and had resulted in the death of Saisnarine Baljit, called ‘Frying Pan’.

A post-mortem conducted on the body of Baljit by Government Pathologist, Dr. Vivikanand Brijmohan on Saturday revealed that his death was due to shock and haemorrhage occasioned by multiple gunshot injuries.

Saisnarine Baljit, called ‘Frying pan’, aged 40, of Tain Village, along with his co-worker Navindra Permaul, aged 38, of Miss Phoebe — both Port Mourant villages — were shot at a camp site about ten miles north of the main road allegedly following an altercation with the shooter. The shot men were employed by rice farmer Sheldon Laso, aka ‘Shelly’, a rice and cattle farmer who is reported to have said that after he received a telephone call from the Albion Sugar Estate informing him of a shooting incident, he rode his motorcycle to the camp site, where he saw Permaul lying in a hammock with blood stains on his trousers.

Upon questioning his employee, he was told that, at 21:00 hrs the previous evening, Permaul and Baljit were together when they were shot and gun-butted by the identifiable suspect, who was armed with a shotgun. As a result, the injured men ran away, but the suspect pursued them, discharging several shots in the process.

Permaul sustained a gunshot injury to his right foot, and was taken to the Port Mourant Hospital, where he was seen by a medical doctor, who thereafter transferred him to the New Amsterdam Hospital, where he remains a patient. Efforts to locate Blajit proved unsuccessful, until Friday morning, when a gang of cane harvesters making their way to work saw a decomposing, bullet-riddled body floating in a canal,
description of which fitted that of the missing Saisnarine Baljit. The police were alerted and a post-mortem was conducted.
Investigations are continuing.