Teen dies in firebomb incident

Doctors told her shocked mother Ghandai Gajadharsingh that Tamee’s heart stopped beating at about 2.30 am despite efforts to save her. Now, her family wants justice.

They believe the police have failed them, but added they have faith that with divine intervention the perpetrator of the brutal attack will be dealt with accordingly. Tamee, her mother Ghandai and siblings Britney, 12, brother Haemant,14, and six-year-old Ambeka Chan, were asleep at their home on the morning of October 11, when something burst through the louvres of a window in the living room.

The object which police believed to be a Molotov cocktail exploded upon impact and immediately lit a mattress on fire. Within seconds, the entire living room, including a couch set, had caught fire. Haemant, who tried feverishly to wake up his three siblings escaped serious injuries but was burnt on the left foot. The student of the Mt Hope Secondary School ran into the burning house and plucked Tamee who had panicked and fell onto the flaming living room couch set. She suffered major burns to 73 percent of her body.

Her sister Britney also suffered burns but was treated at hospital and discharged. Tamee spent two months at the EWMSC, where doctors tried to save her. Yesterday, her mother was inconsolable.

She said that on Tuesday just before midday when she visited her daughter Tamee said, “Mammy, give me a hug nah”.

“But I told her that with all the tubes hooked up to her, it was difficult, but she told me to try, and I did hug my daughter but little did I know that it was the last time I would be doing so,” Ghandai said at the house of mourning yesterday.

At about 6 pm on Tuesday, Ghandai telephoned the hospital and was told her daughter needed platelets to stop her blood from clotting. She said that around midnight she was told her daughter’s condition had worsened and by 2.30 am, her heart gave out.

Before she died, Tamee reportedly told a nurse at her bedside that she was seeing a woman dressed in white playing a guitar with sweet sounds emanating from the instrument.

“I feel that the person she saw was Mother Saraswati, the Hindu goddess who Tamee fasted and prayed to every Friday. I feel that she is now in the company of God,” Ghandai said.

Clutching her chest, the distraught Ghandai said she is a praying woman and will not rest until she gets justice for the death of her daughter.

“Tamee was a young girl, in the prime of her life and what that person did was a horrible act. I will not rest until I get justice, because everything that one does always comes back to haunt him or her,” the determined woman said.