Mon Repos tragedy: Ex-wife says was choked and forced to swallow poison

By Isanella Patoir

Still reeling from traumatic events which resulted in her ex-husband committing suicide and her three-year-old daughter being hospitalised on Monday, Kavita Persaud remains in a stable condition at the Georgetown Hospital.

The 35-year-old mother of three spoke to the News Room Tuesday from her hospital bed where she recalled the horrifying details of how her ex-husband locked them inside the Martyr’s Ville, Mon Repos East Coast Demerara house, choked and forced her and her daughter to drink a poisonous substance.

Kavita’s ex-husband, 57-year-old Balkaran Persaud, who was a taxi driver, died after he reportedly ingested the poisonous substance.

On the morning of the incident, Balkaran sent a taxi to pick up Kavita to drop her by his house under the pretext that she had to prepare their 3-year-old daughter for school.

But when Kavita got there, the man locked them inside and threatened to kill them and take his life.

“When I go now he pay the taxi and I go in the yard and I ain’t know he padlock the gate; the back door lock and he lock the front door and he shove me down and say -this is the end of me and you and this child, you not gonna [be here] to punish and look she and I not gonna deh to punish,” Kavita recalled in tears.

She said the man choked her several times during which she lost consciousness. When she started to spit blood, she begged him to take her to the hospital but he refused.

It was when the little girl asked for something to drink that Kavita used the opportunity steal a call from Balkaran’s cellphone to a neighbour and alert them about what was happening.

“By the time them to come over now, he grab me and choke me and then he start to push the thing in me mouth and I say –this is poison, lose me!

“And then I bite he finger, when I bite he finger now he grab me baby and me see he hand deh in she mouth and I grab she and put she down to get the front door open,” the distraught woman said.

Kavita said she fought Balkaran to get the door open for the neighbours to help her. Kavita said ended the relationship with Balkaran after eight years of marriage because he would abuse her.

“After he does curse me every day, I decide to move with meh one daughter and leave the little one with him and go and rent a place and live,” Kavita said.   

Kavita had left the three-year-old girl with her father but would go to the man’s house every day to get her dressed for school.

The man had two children from a previous relationship, while Kavita also has two others from another relationship.