Mother of four, who was set on fire by husband, dies

Tavita Lall, a mother of four from #64 Village, Upper Corentyne Berbice, died on Tuesday morning at the Georgetown Public Hospital weeks after she was set on fire by her husband Dipnarine Seelall.

Her mom, Bamela Lall, who has been travelling back and forth from Berbice to Georgetown almost daily to take care of her daughter, confirmed with the News Room that Tavita succumbed sometime around 06:30hrs.

The last time Bamela saw her daughter was on Sunday afternoon when she visited but she was unconscious.

Tavita, 42, was given a 50/50 chance of survival due to the severity of her burns. Surgery was done to remove her breasts three weeks post-admission to the institution but her condition continued to deteriorate as time elapsed.

During one of their last conversations on Wednesday last, Tavita told her mom to take care of her youngest daughter.

“She ask meh ‘mommy you love me?’ And me tell she ‘me love she’ and then she said mommy ‘me na gon live’ and that I [must] look after meh grand-daughter and na mek nobody beat she.”

Bamela said she promised Tavita that she would take care of the child.

The News Room had reported that Tavita, a sweeper/cleaner at the Tagore Memorial Secondary School, was engaged in a heated argument with her husband at their home in early January.

She was preparing dinner and as she scratched the match to light the stove, Seelall allegedly doused her with kerosene, causing the flame to catch on the fuel, immediately engulfing her body with fire.

Seelall was said to be under the influence of alcohol when he committed the act; he was subsequently arrested, charged and remanded to prison for the incident.

He is likely to face a murder charge following her death.