Dr Sharma's friend calls for forgiveness

“Forgive the perpetrators and pray for the nation."

This was the message to family and friends of Dr Rudradeva Sharma, who was killed in a kidnapping attempt last Tuesday.

One of Sharma's close friends, Aaron Partap, said forgiveness was what Sharma would have wanted.

He said Sharma did not believe in hate, revenge or malice.

“Rudy was very spiritual and he believed that we should leave matters in the hands of God who is the judge of everything.”

Partap called on people to refrain from hate and instead pray for the nation. Partap and Dr. Sharma attended Presentation Boys' College, San Fernando, together.

Sharma's funeral service at the family's home at Sunset Ridge, San Fernando, was packed with relatives, friends, doctors and other dignitaries.

Former president Anthony Carmona, who was at the funeral, said doing good was not based on reciprocity.

He called on citizens to do better. “We have to do better in TT. We have to make a change and create a human revolution in our lives to make TT a better place. We are heading for disaster,” he lamented.

Carmona said we must stop trivialising life.

“We tend to trivialise lives by saying certain deaths are gang-related and drug-related and we pass judgment on a victim. We are being judged by the world by our murder rate and human violence.”

Carmona said he hopes Sharma's legacy of service and compassion stayed with citizens. "We have to invoke God to ease our pain. You invested so much in this young man, just to have him taken away by the wind of criminal activity.”

Opposition leader Kamla Persad- Bissessar also addressed mourners.

“He was one of our children. What can you say to parents? Ma and Pa you were good parents, raised him with the best of life. Today, as you mourn, you will think what you say, what you did, what you did not do, but we praise him, pay tribute who all made us proud.”

Sharma's sister, Renuka, who eulogised her brother, said he was exceptionally talented.

She said in 1996, he won the Australian Mathematics Olympiad and the Canadian Olympiad in 1997. She also said he was a skilled, self-taught guitarist, had his own microscope, telescope and science set and always carried a pen and paper to write encoded messages.

Sharma, 38, and his friend, Dr. Prem Naidoo, 37, were abducted last Tuesday night by three men at Rushworth Street in San Fernando. While the abductors were making their escape with the doctors in Sharma’s white Honda CRV SUV, it crashed in Macaulay, killing Sharma on the spot.

Naidoo and the three suspects were taken to the San Fernando General Hospital where one of the suspects later died, and a second suspect remains warded. A third man has since been discharged and is in police custody.

Naidoo attended Sharma's funeral on Sunday.