Durban - “I did it. I hope you love me dad.”
This is what 31-year-old Phoenix woman Kavitha Naicker allegedly told her father about the gruesome murder of her 9-year-old nephew, Shahiel Sewpujan.
Naicker and her mother, Rajwanthie Haripersadh, 54, are the accused in a trial stemming from a murder that rocked the country in February last year.
The “playful” Grade 4 pupil was allegedly denied food by his two relatives, with whom he and his mother lived, and later gagged with tape, stuffed into a large carrier bag and tossed into a manhole.
The decomposed body of Shahiel (also known as “Lolo”) was found in a drain in Chatclay Road, Clayfield, four days after he was reported missing by his distraught mother, Ishara Dewnarain Sewpujan.
The two accused, their hands bound by cable ties, were taken to the scene last Wednesday for an in loco inspection by the court. Accompanied by police, legal counsels, Judge Dhaya Pillay and others, they looked nervous and uneasy as they went to the drain, where a shrine had been erected in Shahiel’s memory. They also went to their Potclay Road home and another drain, in Cranebridge Road, where the boy’s school bag and books had been discarded.
A home in Potclay Road belonging to a relative of the accused also formed part of the inspection.
In a day of high drama in the Durban High Court on Tuesday, it emerged in a five-page document, which forms part of the court record, that Naicker had allegedly informed her father, Arumugam Naicker, and uncle, Visvanathan Naicker, about the murder.
At the time she and her mother were being treated at Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Hospital after they consumed automotive brake fluid, in an alleged suicide bid.
Visvanathan told the court that he and his brother Arumugam had gone to the hospital after being told by police that she wanted to see her father.
According to Visvanathan, Kavitha was crying and was handcuffed to the bed while a policewoman stood guard.
However, what she had allegedly told her father that day, as contained in the document before court, is being disputed by the defence, and a trial-within-a-trial is proceeding on that matter.
On Monday, Kavitha said via her advocate, Machunu Ndelela, that she had dictated the contents of the document to her father.
But, blaming the brake fluid, she claimed she had not been in the right frame of mind at the time.
On Tuesday, Visvanathan said that contrary to Kavitha’s claim that her father had written what she had dictated, she had written it herself.
He said Kavitha had stated in the document that she had wanted to get the issue off her chest and that she had made the document without being influenced.
It was also allegedly stated that she had supplied the tape which was used to cover Shahiel’s mouth and nose.
Visvanathan said he and his brother signed the document.
While it is the State’s case that Kavitha and her mother had attempted to commit suicide by drinking brake fluid, both she and her mother, who is being represented by advocate N Mozobe, said that was not so.
They said they had consumed the fluid because Kavitha’s ex-boyfriend, Adheel Bux, had wanted to sell their home and that had placed them under pressure.
The accused, who tendered not guilty pleas but chose to remain silent, are also contesting the validity of the statements they made to police when they were arrested.
They claimed that they were influenced by police on what to say.
In the disputed document that is the subject of the trial-within-a-trial, Kavitha initially blamed Bux (whose brother Asif Bux is Shahiel’s stepfather) for the boy’s murder.
Police released Adheel after questioning him and he has not been prosecuted.
Visvanathan testified on Monday that Kavitha and Haripersadh had passed his home in Potclay Road carrying something heavy in a large carrier bag one day in February last year.
“They left it on the steps and ground thrice because it was heavy. The bag was sealed and I was unable to see what was inside it,” he said.
Visvanathan said that when he asked what they were carrying, Kavitha said it was a pot of food.
“She said they had prepared it for a party. They then proceeded in the direction of the mosque.”
State advocate Denardo MacDonald submitted that the bag had contained Shahiel’s body and that it was dumped in a drain in Chatclay Road.
Kavitha, via her counsel, has claimed that the pink bag in question had contained garbage in a black bin bag, which they left near the mosque.
Meanwhile, Kavitha, who was dressed in a blue checked top and pants on Monday, was warned by the judge to stop “bobbing up and down” in the dock and to refrain from holding up the trial.
Haripersadh, who wore a bright orange top, sat quietly, looking directly at Judge Pillay and assessor Lyn Ploos van Amstel most of the time.
The trial is ongoing.
POST