Disabled man perishes in fire

A 25-YEAR-OLD paraplegic who was also a mute, perished in a fire which destroyed his Debe home yesterday morning.

Police investigators strongly believe Vijay Balgobin, who could neither have run out of the burning house nor call for help, may have started the fire which eventually took his life. He was known to be in the habit of playing with matches. The house did not have an electricity supply. Balgobin, who lived with his mother Dulcin Balgobin, 58, and his cousin, Amid, at Cuchawan Trace, Debe, was reportedly at home alone when the incident occurred at about 8.20 am. Balgobin’s mother had left the house for a few minutes to purchase fish from a passing van. The deceased’s aunt Sampatie Jairam, 50, left home to drop her six-year-old granddaughter to school, while Balgobin’s cousin Amid, was also not at home. The smoke from the fire was spotted by neighbours who ran to the burning house and tried in vain to rescue the helpless paraplegic. After being alerted by neighbours about the fire, both Dulcin and her sister Jairam, also ran to the house but they too could not get inside.

Balgobin’s ailing mother reportedly screamed and fainted, when she realised nothing could be done to save her trapped son. She was taken in an EHS ambulance to the San Fernando General Hospital, and up to yesterday evening, she had not returned home. Roger Loubin, 28, told Newsday he was standing in front of Balgobin’s aunt’s house when he saw the smoke. “I thought it was some rubbish burning,” Loubin said. He added that only when he saw flames licking the walls of the house, did he realise the fire was a major one and that the house was burning. Wiping tears from her eyes, Jairam related how she heard her mute nephew screaming in agony and could only watch helplessly, as the house was rapidly engulfed in the flames, burning Balgobin beyond recognition.  Jairam said Balgobin was unable to walk or talk from birth, and she had been assisting her sister, Dulcin, to take care of  the disabled man. She denied that he was accustomed playing with matches. “He never touch nothing. He could not hold anything,” she said. However, her daughter, Susan, who had gone to spend her birthday yesterday with her mother, said Balgobin used to play with matches and pieces of cloth. She said he used sign language to communicate and used to laugh all the time. DMO Dr Bijai Balliram viewed the remains of the body and ordered it removed to the Forensic Science Centre, St James, where an autopsy was due to be carried out yesterday afternoon. Visiting the scene were a party of San Fernando CID detectives and firemen. The fire has also left Balgobin’s ailing mother Dulcin and cousin Amid, homeless. Investigations are continuing.