“…he used to beat she with the belna and put she out” – neighbour
An East Coast Demerara (ECD) woman was on Friday night strangled to death by her reputed husband, who had been abusing her for years. After killing the woman, the man committed suicide.
Dead: Balram Heeralall
The dead woman has been identified as Nalini Wahid, 48, a domestic worker, while her reputed husband has been identified as Balram Heeralall, called “Nappy”, a 50-year-old clothes vendor. For more than 28 years, the couple had lived at Martyr’s Ville New Scheme in Mon Repos, East Coast Demerara (ECD).
Reports are that Wahid and Heeralall had had many domestic issues. In fact, the dead man had been arraigned before the Sparendaam Magistrate for assaulting and threatening his reputed wife.
On Friday, the couple went to court, and later returned home, after which he was involved in an accident with a horse. He returned home at about 20:15h and complained of feeling unwell.
Wahid insisted on taking him to the hospital, but he wanted to drive himself. The woman refused to go with him, and an argument ensued between them. Sometime later, neighbours heard her shouting for help. One neighbour who was there when the man arrived home said she jumped the fence and saw Heeralall choking Wahid while telling her to die.
Dead: Nalini Wahid
“After I jump over the fence, I jump over their verandah and I peep through the glass, and I see he slamming she to the wall. He then start vice she, and he put her down on the ground.
“Me say, ‘Ow Nappy, you gonna kill she’. Me and he eye start making four. How she start to do she self, me say she life done,” this neighbour related.
The woman said that, sometime later, her friend became motionless, and the man walked to the front door. She said she made a run for her life, since she thought he would have attacked her.
“I thought he was coming out to do me anything. I jump over the railing, and the neighbour told me to jump over her fence. He open the door, he go at the back, they got a storeroom at the back, and he go and bring out poison.
“He take off all the lights, so I told my other neighbour that I believe Nali done dead, because she would’ve get up and call for me. Nobody was there to save she,” the woman explained.
She said her friend’s husband would usually imbibe alcohol, but on the day in question, her friend told her he was not drunk. She said it was only on Wednesday last that the dead man had beaten the woman with a rolling pin, and she had to be saved by the Police.
The house in which the murder-suicide occurred
“The Police had to come and kick open the door and warn he don’t beat she. He used to beat she with the belna and put she out…”, the woman said.
On Friday afternoon, the neighbour said, the woman went to her home and told her she believes that her husband would kill her, and they should give her a good burial.
“She said when she dead, dress her up nice and so. She can’t go nowhere or do nothing. Nobody can’t come to here. He would come out and buse them out or beat she, slap she, or cuff she up in her head”.
Heeralall was found lying next to his reputed wife’s body. The man and woman are said to have produced two children who live overseas.
When Police arrived at the scene, paramedics of the Melanie Fire Station were summoned, and transported Balram to the GPHC, where he died.
Meanwhile, neighbours and relatives claimed that several calls were made to the 914 domestic violence hotlines to report the abuse, but all calls went unanswered.
Further, neighbours claimed that Police ranks arrived at the scene some two hours after they were called.
Meanwhile, one of Wahid’s aunts took to social media to say that her niece had indeed suffered years of abuse.
“She was a very hard-working woman, who did everything that she could to support her family, including the drunken husband. She cleaned people’s house, cooked and supply villagers with food as a business, sell at the market and many other odd jobs of which she used to educate her two sons,” the aunt said.
She added that both of Wahid’s children are overseas, and that her niece had attempted to leave Heeralall, but he would stalk her at anyone’s home where she was seeking refuge.
“…everywhere she seeks shelter he hunted her down and threaten to kill her if she doesn’t go back with him. He even threatened to kill her siblings when she takes shelter there…on her own, she applied for a house lot and took a mortgage and had that beautiful house built and was working to pay that mortgage,” the woman added. (G9)
