Durban - A tenant who lived in the home where Durban boy Shahiel Sewpujun was killed described on Monday how she helped to save the lives of the two women now charged with the child’s murder.
Vijiluxmi Pillay testified on Monday that both Shahiel’s mother’s aunt Rajwanthie Haripersadh and cousin Kavitha Naiker drank a “fluid used for cars” two days after Shahiel disappeared.
Pillay, 69, testified that she rented a room at the Flatclay Drive, Phoenix, home where the accused, Shahiel, his mother and stepfather lived.
Haripersadh and Naiker are on trial charged in the Durban High Court with Shahiel’s murder, and both have pleaded not guilty to the crime.
The State alleges they killed Shahiel by hitting him on the head with a chisel and then placing a piece of tape over his mouth and nose, suffocating him, on the morning of February 5 last year.
It is alleged that the women initially put Shahiel’s body in a suitcase which they dumped in bush, but they later put his body in a stormwater drain not far from their home.
Shahiel’s body was found on February 8 and a post-mortem report stated that he died as a result of “blunt force trauma to his head” and smothering.
Pillay testified that on February 5 last year, she saw Naiker take a black bin packet from the home and she told her that it contained “bedding for an uncle”.
She said when Naiker returned to the home she looked as if she had a “lot of problems” and later both Naiker and Haripersadh said they were “going for a party”.
Pillay said neither woman showed any reaction when she told them later that night that Shahiel was missing.
Pillay said that on February 7 Naiker was taken away by police and when she returned home, she starting writing on a page.
“She (Naiker) took a page and a pen and was writing and when she finished she called me and told me to give the page to her sister. But I did not want to do it, so I put the page away under a mattress.”
Pillay said later that day she heard Naiker and Haripersadh making strange noises in the bathroom.
“They were moaning and groaning and I did not know what to do. I called my son who banged on the bathroom door, but it did not open. So I ran to call the neighbours who came and broke down the door.”
Pillay said she saw a tin of “fluid”, which the State says is brake fluid, in the bathroom and she was told the women had drunk it.
Pillay also said that before his death, both Naiker and Haripersadh stopped feeding Shahiel after he came home from school. “They used to give him food after school. But then there was a problem and they would not feed him, so he used to ask me.”
The case continues.
The Mercury