Sister remembers brother’s ultimate sacrifice

UTTAMDEO MARAJH, 25, who was recently married, made the ultimate sacrifice and paid for his teenaged sister’s safety with his life, when he saved her from the clutches of gun-toting kidnappers at the family’s grocery on Thursday. Marajh, a mechanical engineer, would have celebrated two months of marriage yesterday but as fate would have it, his young bride instead mourned his death. In a daring mid-afternoon robbery at Marajh’s Parlour and Bar at Dickee Trace in Palo Seco, four gunmen shot Marajh at point blank range in the head before shooting his mother Kaylin, 46, who remains warded at San Fernando General Hospital.

Yesterday, police sources confirmed that they had three suspects in custody after they were held in the Santa Flora forest. Marajh, an employee of Tucker Ltd and Elizabeth, both lived with his parents’ Ramdass and Kaylin Marajh. The deceased man’s parents manage the family business which is located on the ground floor of the house. With tears in her eyes, Marajh’s only sister, Nandini, 17, recalled how her brave brother protected her down to the very end. She said that shortly after 2 pm on Thursday, she was conducting sales in the parlour, when three men — armed with guns and wearing masks — entered and announced a hold up.

At the same time, Marajh’s brother emerged from the back of the parlour and the gunmen pointed their guns at him. Nandini remembered her mother screaming for help. But she struggled with one of the bandits who shot her in her left shoulder. Nandini said the two other gunmen ordered she and Marajh upstairs. They then searched the house and took a quantity of jewelry. “They hit my brother with a gun butt and the magazine fell to the ground with bullets scattering on the floor,” Nandini said. She said the two gunmen ordered them back into the parlour downstairs where they tied Marajh’s hands. They then shot him in his leg, Nandini said.

But it was after the men took a metal box containing the money, that one of them grabbed her and said: “We taking she.” Nandini, recalling the horrifying moments, said: “At this point, my brother intervened and told the bandits, ‘no, no!’. One of them then put a gun close to his head.” Nandini said one of the gunmen fired a shot but it did not go off. “At this point my brother started begging them not to shoot him. He said ‘take the box (of money) and spare my life’,” a crying Nandini related. The gunman pulled the trigger a second time and Marajh fell to the ground. The intruders then ran off leaving Nandini behind.

The gunmen escaped in a white B13 Nissan Sentra, but within minutes, E999 Rapid Response officers caught up with the men. A high speed chase ended in Petrotrin Oil Field Road with the killers crashing into another car. The driver of the vehicle remained pinned behind the wheel and had to be freed by police. Officers using tracker dogs and a National Security Helicopter, searched the forests and pounced on two suspects around 7.30 pm on Thursday. Snr Supt Felix Nimrod and Supt Samuel Jemmot are spearheading investigations.