Dead: Shri Maan Somraj
A 63-year-old farmer died on Thursday after he was electrocuted while trying to disconnect an illegal electrical connection to his home.
Dead is Shri Maan Somraj of Yakasari North, Black Bush Polder, Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne).
Police said the man and his wife returned to Guyana from Trinidad in November 2023, where they observed that the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) Inc meter that was connected to their home was falling off.
As such, in March 2024, the couple reported the matter to GPL. When the power company conducted their inspection, they observed that the meter was tampered with and as such, advised the couple to go into a GPL office to have the issue addressed.
“When we come back from Trinidad, me go into GPL and complain that me meter tie with canvas rope and when they come to change the meter they tell me that somebody go in the meter and tamper it to make it spin slow,” the now-dead man’s wife, Dhanmattee Deonarine explained.
The utility company confiscated the meter and advised that the couple pay $80,000 in order to be reconnected to the grid.
However, according to the woman, she did not have the money, but she was able to acquire $60,000 from her daughter-in-law to pay to the utility company; however, she diverted the money to other uses on the morning of her husband’s demise.
“He tell me to go and buy a water pump so we could pump out the water from the garden because of the flood. We say that if the garden get dry, we could make the money from the garden and then go and pay fuh the meter,” Deonarine explained.
However, in the meantime, the family sought to use other means to get electricity to their home, according to the now widowed woman, which turned out to be fatal.
“We neighbour move out and the meter was still there and he go to hook up the wire there to get current, so that he could talk with his daughter in Trinidad. That is how he get shock and the wire wrap around on he hand,” she related.
According to Deonarine, after returning with the water pump, she set about cooking and when she was finished, she went back onto the road and did not notice her husband lying dead at the side of the house a short distance from the kitchen.
She noted that it was a boy who lives next door who made the discovery and told his mother that the man was electrocuted.
When the neighbour phoned her and informed her of what happened, Deonarine said she told the neighbour that her husband had probably consumed alcohol and was intoxicated.
Meanwhile, Devika Sahadeo, who lives in the same street, said she once lived at the property where the electricity was being sourced, but moved out three years ago and had asked the utility company to disconnect the power to the building.
“Me buy the house, I did not buy the meter, the people who were living there that is their meter. When I buy the house, they put the meter on the same post that it is at three years now, you ask anybody,” the women challenged.
Both the Police and GPL are conducting investigations.
Meanwhile, an autopsy conducted on the body of Somraj confirmed that he was electrocuted. The autopsy gave the primary cause of death as being ventricular fibrillation. (G4)
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