Pundit: Murder/suicide couple together forever

While officiating yesterday at the funeral service of a married Penal couple who died in a murder/suicide this week, a Hindu pundit told bereaved relatives and friends that their deaths were a blessing in disguise as the couple would now be together forever. This was the consolation offered to a large gathering of mourners, including the couple’s six children, at the service held at Clarke Road Penal. However, Deonarine Ramkhelawan, who hanged himself after strangling his wife Rookmin, was denied his last wish as his body was placed in a separate casket, which was laid out next to his wife’s casket. In his suicide note, Deonarine had requested that his body be placed in a single casket with his wife’s body.

The couple’s crying daughters, Sunita and Sherry, were consoled by their brothers as they performed Aarti (Hindu burial prayers) on the bodies of their parents, which were clad in white clothing. “I knew Rita for some time and she was a very nice person. Sometimes she misunderstood things like any other person. When I heard about her death, I asked why someone would want to do this and then I heard about his (Deonarine) death,” Pundit Maha-raj said. He told the gathering that when people walked around a fire in a wedding ceremony, it was meant that they should be together for-ever. “Deonarine ensured he and his wife were together forever and that was what he asked for in the suicide note,” Pundit Maharaj added. “Look on a brighter note. Those that God love leave us early.” From the house of mourning, the bodies were taken to the Shore of Peace where the final rites were performed. The bodies were cremated on a single pyre.