–abusive grandpa arrested

By Shirley Thomas
SEVENTEEN-year-old Maria Jones and her 10-month-old baby, Omar Jones, allegedly chopped by the baby’s grandfather last Saturday, remain warded at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), but they are said to be recovering well.Baby Omar who was chopped on the head was yesterday sitting cheerfully in bed while his mother fed him a meal of beef stew and crushed potatoes. The mother who was chopped on her elbow also sustained multiple abrasions about her body, and a number of black-and-blue marks were visible.
The assailant, whose name was given as ‘Jeewan’, allegedly inflicted chop wounds to the young mother and her baby shortly before 19:00 hrs last Saturday, following an altercation.
The baby’s father is said to be still unaware of the incident since it is difficult to receive signals at his location in the Rupununi.
Jeewan is the father of 21-year-old Vinod who is Maria Jones’ reputed husband, and father of her child Omar. Vinod who works in the Rupununi entered into an agreement with his father to allow his reputed wife and young child to share his home at Independence Street, La Grange.
However, the injured woman is reluctant to speak with the media. Her sister Camille agreed to, contending that “this battery and advantage must stop, since it has been going on a long time now.”

MONTHS OF ABUSE
Following the bloody encounter, Maria told Camille that she had overheard Jeewan telling someone that Omar was not his son’s child. Incensed at that, Maria immediately confronted Jeewan who then slapped her. She hit him back and a scuffle ensued. She was chopped on the arm in the region of her elbow, and beaten about the body. And while she cannot clearly recall how the baby was chopped, she figures that he was wounded while in her arms as his grandfather was attacking her.
Neighbours, on hearing the commotion and seeing the injured woman coming out of the house with her bleeding child, called the police but Jeewan fled and hid in the canefields before the police arrived. However, shortly after midnight he was arrested and remains in custody.

ADVANCES BY GRANDAD
The mother and baby were rushed to the West Demerara Regional Hospital and then to the GPHC. Maria also told her sister that Jeewan on the same night of the chopping incident had made advances to her, and she had resisted him.
Neighbours substantiated this claim by saying that he had been ‘drinking’ earlier in the night and offered Maria a mug of beer but she refused. They related too that after the incident they went to the house and found the beer still in the mug untouched.

Neighbours said that Jeewan’s wife, from whom he had been estranged almost 20 years on account of his constant abuse, turned up at the house Sunday after hearing that he had been taken into custody.
One neighbour, deeply agonized by the young woman’s ordeal, blurted out: “Is the same way he used to beat another woman his son had before he tek this girl here, and the young woman had to eventually cut out and run.”

The Jones sisters hail from the Rupununi, and according to Camille, Maria was sent to the city by their parents to get a better education. She was a student of Friendship Secondary School, East Bank Demerara when Vinod started a relationship with her.
After she became pregnant she had to discontinue her schooling and when the baby was born, she left her elder sister Vanessa’s home at Diamond and started living with Vinod at his father’s place.
Soon after she was allegedly physically abused by Jeewan and left his home but her husband soon returned from the Rupununi. He spent some time with her then left her and her baby with his father again.

Neighbours expressed disgust at the way Vinod has been leaving his female partners with his father, knowing well that he has been physically and psychologically abusive to them. “You should see she legs, she arms under she sleeves and she back – even she ears. It cut up all about,” they claimed.
They also said that Jeewan would beat the hapless 17-year-old out of a hammock he had tied under the house in which they live. They are convinced that he has been threatening her and so she is afraid of him and remains mum.

Maria has now made up her mind that she is not moving back into Jeewan’s house. And as for the landlord, it would be a breath of fresh air when he can have possession of his house once more, he said.