“Oh gosh, he killed my Daddy.” That was the cry of nine-year-old Laila Subhan, who witnessed a relative stabbing her family on Wednesday night. Laila and her seven-year-old brother Salim had a narrow escape, as police shot the killer, her cousin, Silvan Alladin, just before he stabbed himself in the chest. Alladin, 38, a machine operator from Cuchawan Trace, Debe, died at the scene of the killings, in Fyzabad.
He had already killed the children’s father, Beryco Subhan, 46, their 15-year-old sister Sherifa and four-year-old brother Musa. Up to late yesterday, their mother, 34-year-old Rasheeda Alladin, was warded at the Intensive Care Unit of the San Fernando General Hospital, unaware her husband and two of her children had been murdered. The murders occurred around 9 pm at Ackbar Trace, Fyzabad, on Wednesday.
Although investigators are unsure of the motive, they believe Alladin parked his Nissan Sunny B-13 in the family’s yard and waited for them to return. They said Rasheeda, whose throat was cut, fought off Alladin and ran to her next-door neighbour Ramesh Meyhroo for help. They said Alladin locked the house and bound and gagged the children with duct tape before beating Musa, slamming him against the walls and floor, before stabbing him to death.
He then went to the parents’ room, where he slit Sherifa’s throat. When police arrived, Cpl Bahadoor and PC Smith found Subhan's body at the entrance of the house and on breaking the door down, they saw Alladin on the bed holding a knife over Laila, with Salim standing next to him. When they called out to him, Alladin tried to plunge a knife into the girl’s chest. A police officer shot him once.
However, this failed to stop him and as the children ran away, he chased them. Police fired several more shots, hitting him. Meyhroo said, “When the little girl ran out, after the police shot the assailant, they were unravelling the duct tape from her mouth and she started jumping up and saying, ‘Oh gosh, he killed my Daddy.’ “Salim was in a mess, he was in total disarray, he had no idea what was going on then.”
Struggling to make sense of the killing, Rasheeda’s grieving mother Hafeeza Alladin, 61, said her daughter and son-in-law visited her an hour before the incident. Speaking at her Ragoonanan Trace, Barrackpore home, she said at no time did they give any indication that their lives were in danger. “All she said was that she had to go home quickly because the children were home alone.
“As soon as they reached home, there was this boy waiting for them, hiding in his car, and as soon as my son-in-law sat down on the swing, he came out and slit my son-in-law’s throat. “He held my daughter and carried her in a room and it so happened that when he cut her throat, she fought back and he cut her hand as well. “She got away and ran by the neighbour and she said, ‘Boy, call my father. They killed my husband and I got away. Take this number and call my father.’”