While wife still unconscious, accident victim cremated

THE funeral service and cremation of crash victim Aknath Basdeo were held yesterday without his wife knowing that he had died.

Basdeo’s wife, Rafeena, 18, who was also involved in the accident, is yet to regain consciousness — five days since the accident which occurred last Saturday afternoon along the Manzanilla stretch. Rafeena, Basdeo’s wife of four months, sustained head injuries and a punctured lung and continues to battle for life at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital. Basdeo, 22, and his aunt-in-law, Sally Kistow, 24, died in the three-car smash-up. While there were separate funeral services for Basdeo and Kistow at Tableland and Sangre Grande at their respective parents’ homes, a joint cremation service was held at the Mafeking Cremation site, Mayaro.

At Basdeo’s funeral service at his Branch Road, Tableland home, almost the entire village turned out to pay their final respects with many of them describing him as a “kind, hardworking and respectable” individual.  Emotions ran high among Basdeo’s family members, especially from his mother Samdaye and youngest sister, Anjanie, with whom he shared a close relationship. His father, Deochan, and sisters, Ousha and Asha, flanked the coffin and touched his face often as they whispered their last goodbyes. Officiating at the funeral according to Hindu rites was Pundit Balirath, who sought to console the family that the deceased was “fortunate” since he had died on the day of the birth of Lord Ganesh (a Hindu God). “What has happened is the work of the Lord. It was not a mistake, but it was the time the Lord had allotted for him (Basdeo) to pass away from this life,” Pundit Balirath said.