Domestic quarrel ends with home being razed

Police are continuing their search for a 33-year-old man who allegedly burnt down a house he was sharing with his common-law wife and their son Wednesday night. The fire followed a heated domestic quarrel. Police said, Radha Hassanali, 31, left her six-year-old son Nicholas Caesar, sleeping in the house and went to her parents’ home next door, at Pollo Ground Road, Preysal. When Newsday visited her parents’ home yesterday, Hassanali had not yet returned from visiting a doctor.

Relating the incident, Hassanali’s mother Parmandaye said, “They had a quarrel on Wednesday and it look like if he (name called) slapped my daughter whose lip was burst and bleeding,” Parmandaye said. “Minutes later, we saw the house on fire and called out to a neighbour, who doused the small flames and telephoned the police.” However, when the family returned from the Couva Police Station where they had gone to lodge a report, they saw the entire house engulfed in flames. the male suspect was nowhere to be found.

Parmandaye said the police found Nicholas (who was left in the house alone earlier on Wednesday evening prior to the fires) at the home of the suspect’s family in Balmain, Couva. Nicholas has since been reunited with his mother. Hassanali’s two other children from a previous relationship live at her parents’ home.

Parmandaye said the relative threatened to burn down the house last December and her daughter was fearful he would physically harm her. Parmandaye said Nicholas was unable to attend school because his school uniform and books were destroyed in the fire. Sgt Edward Lumy of Couva Police Station is investigating.