Moruga pensioners escape firebombing

STACY MOORE

An elderly couple of Indian Walk, Moruga and their son, narrowly escaped death after their house was firebombed yesterday morning.

Police are investigating the incident as an act of arson in which a molotov cocktail was thrown into one of the bedrooms where pensioners Natheram Jagroop, 80, and his wife, Ivy, 73, were asleep at about 11.30 am. According to a police report, the couple were in the downstairs of their Perry Young Road home when there was an explosion at the top floor of the house. Within minutes, the house was covered by plumes of thick smoke. Speaking with Newsday yesterday, one of the couples’ daughter, Cynthra Singh, said that seconds before the explosion, her parents heard the sound of a vehicle in front their house. Singh said, “They did not think anything of it , but in no time they heard this explosion from upstairs, they heard a neighbour screaming from the road that the house was on fire.”

The woman believes that someone in the vehicle that had stopped in front the house had thrown something in the house which caused the explosion. Singh said her parents held on to each other and rushed out the house. “At that time the fire had already started to spread to the rooms of the house. My parents had to run out of the house. It was while running out of the house, stuff also began falling,”

Singh said. She said something caught a fire and fell on her father’s right arm. “Despite the pain he may have been in, he still kept going and was able to make it safe out of the house,” Singh said. Jagroop suffered minor burns to the right hand.

She said she was not aware of any recent threats made to her parents or brother. “We are all just confused and want to know why,” Singh said. The woman said all the family’s valuables such as appliances, clothing and furniture were destroyed. “Nothing was saved and now my parents are homeless. They lost everything,” Singh said. The couple had been living at the house for the past 50 years. The family is calling for answers. “The people in this country are becoming more and more heartless and cruel everyday,” Singh said.