Large turn-out as convicted drug dealer cremated

SCORES of villagers from Icacos turned up for the funeral service and cremation of convicted drug trafficker Mantoor Ramdhanie, who died in prison last week where he was serving a life sentence. However, missing from the funeral service was his son Deochan, who is also a convicted drug dealer serving life imprisonment.

While Deochan Ramdhanie may not have witnessed the funeral service and cremation of his father because he is currently incarcerated at the Maximum Security Prison (MSP) in Arouca, he did pay his last respects and even performed Aarti (Hindu funeral ritual) over his father’s body at Dass Funeral Home, Chaguanas on Wednesday. Ramdhanie, in an unprecedented move, was allowed two hours to say his final farewell to his father. He did so in style, having been taken to the funeral home in an air-conditioned Prisons Authority’s van and decked off in a tuxedo. Yesterday, close relatives and villagers wept openly as they remembered the man who reputedly built a multimillion-dollar fortune trading in drugs between the shores of Icacos and the Venezuelan mainland. Villagers who flocked to Ramdhanie’s home described him as the “Robin Hood” of the poverty-stricken rural district.

Ramdhanie, 59, and his son Deochan, 39, were jailed in 1998 and $3.3 million in assets were seized by the State under the Proceeds From Dangerous Drugs Act. Ramdhanie died from complications due to chronic diabetes, having served six years of the life sentence. The State released his body on Monday to the family after an autopsy was carried out. Ramdhanie leaves to mourn his wife, Una, 58, two other sons (who arrived from the United States specifically to attend the funeral) and a daughter. Ramdhanie’s body was transported in a 90-mile journey to his hometown in Icacos where Pundit Mannie of Coramandel performed Hindu prayers. Sitting next to his white casket, Ramdhanie’s wife, Una, removed the sindoor (mark on the forehead signifying marriage) from her forehead, officially proclaiming herself a widow. Una, who had to seek medical attention upon learning of her husband’s death, wept uncontrollably.

At the funeral service, Ramdhanie was described as a businessman who owned several coconut estates in Icacos. Mention was made of his fishing expeditions across Venezuela, as well as the grocery he established where he lived. Ramdhanie was born in Icacos. He shot into national prominence in the late 1980s when he became involved in confrontations with the police, which eventually ended in his arrest, conviction and imprisonment on drug charges. His house was searched on many occasions for drugs, but Ramdhanie was charged then with possession of a pellet gun and contraband whisky. He was freed of the charges. At the funeral service, Ramdhanie’s sister-in-law, Lena, was very outspoken during which she expressed anger over Ramdhanie’s prosecution as a drug trafficker. “My brother-in-law died with love. He loved everyone,” Lena said. Ramdhanie’s two sons and nephews, bore the body to the pyre at the Shore of Peace on the Mosquito Creek, La Romaine, where he was cremated. Attorneys for the family, Mark Seepersad and Gerald Ramdeen, mingled with relatives who were often seen consulting with them throughout the service and at the cremation site.