Funeral for Prez Medal winner

A call has been made to young people to emulate the accomplishments of President’s Medal winner Omesh Mathura who succumbed last Friday to injuries he sustained in a car accident on May 2.

“I challenge the youths to take over his mantle and be another Omesh,” Maha Sabha president general Thirbhuwan Seegobin implored yesterday during Mathura’s funeral service.

“He was being groomed to be a future leader. He was a son of the soil and it is a sad loss,” Seegobin told mourners at Mathura’s Tumpuna Road, Cumuto home. Mathura, a Hindu, topped scholars in the Advanced Level examinations in 2003, copping a national scholarship and the President’s Medal.

He went on to pursue a degree in mathematics at the University of the West Indies.

Mathura died at the Seventh-day Adventist Community Hospital in Cocorite where he had been warded after the car crash in Arima two weeks ago.

Police report that Mathura was leaving the Arawak plant, off the Churchill Roosevelt Highway, at around 4.30 pm on May 2.

He was heading east when a truck ran into his car.

Mathura was taken to the Arima District Hospital and transferred to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mt Hope. He was again moved, this time to the Cocorite hospital. Mathura suffered injuries to his brain, lungs and thighs.

Pundit Samsundar Maharaj officiated at the funeral attended by representatives from the Lower Cumuto Government School, the Cumuto Shiv Mandir and the Maha Sabha. Ranjeet Bhagaloo gave the eulogy. Mathura was cremated at the Waterloo cremation site.