…16-year-old son targeted by village bullies – grieving mother
Police are investigating the death of a Corentyne teenager whose body was discovered along the Number 47 Village Main Access Road on Sunday evening.
Dead is 16-year-old Justin Smith of Number 47 Village. His wounded body was picked up from the parapet along the Corentyne Highway at Number 47 Village. The motorbike he was riding was a short distance away.
The teenager is believed to have been beaten to death by villagers.
According to one villager, it was a road accident involving the teenager’s motorcycle alone.
Dead: 16-year-old Justin Smith
However, the teen’s mother Dhanraji Seenauth called ‘Anita’, said her son was beaten by three young men from the same village.
Seenauth told Guyana Times that there was a hole at the back of her son’s head which she believes was caused when he was lashed off the motorcycle he was riding. The woman said there was what appeared to be a defensive chop wound to his hand and another chop wound to his back.
“Something was wrong with the motorbike, and the bike rope wasn’t riding speed. So whilst he riding they start pelting slush on him, all on his foot and his hand. Then they put a lash on his head and he fall down with the bike. According to how I see his body, I could tell it is not an accident. The bike is there, it didn’t crash, but when he fall down, the bike get bruised at the side,” the mother disclosed.
Seenauth told this newspaper that her son had an ongoing feud with some of his former schoolmates. She said some of the matters got the attention of the courts.
According to Seenauth, about one week before her son’s demise, there was an altercation, and her son threatened to retaliate. Police are yet to issue a statement on the incident.
The grieving mother also related several other incidents during which her son was allegedly harassed by teenage villagers.
“One time, he took a pressure wash while on the road. he put the pressure wash on the boy, and a car miss knock him down. Another time they had a car and you run my son off the road. My son had an electric bike, that was when the electric bike had just come out. My son had to ride in the trench to save himself because you running with the car to knock him down. So when we come home from the market his stepfather go to the boys and ask them what happen and why they behaving like that, and one of them lashed my husband and blocked him out and I went and rescued my husband they take empty beer bottles and start pelting him in his head and you have to go to the hospital and get stitches. The matter end up going to court.” Seenauth said while adding that her husband settled the matter for financial compensation.
However, she claims that the money was ‘dirty money’, and after receiving it, her husband lost his senses and eventually committed suicide.
“My son went to Havana (a local entertainment spot) one night, and the boy dealt one slap in his face, and his eye will swell up for a couple mornings. When my son was coming home, he take a gun and shoot three load at him in front of his foot, and then he drive away and gone.”
That incident, she said, was reported to the police. However, searches were carried out and the investigators were unable to locate a firearm. Additionally, persons who were said to be present during the incident told the police that they did not see or hear anything.
“So when he get a problem now, he don’t go and make a report at the station because he doesn’t get no justice. Last week they had a fight and me son walk up the same time and try to part the fight and they start to beat him; some real lix all in his head and since then they get a problem because my son tell them that it wouldn’t finish so,” Seenauth said while calling for justice for her dead son.
