Mohini Ganase, 16, said her mother Sherry-Ann Seecharan supported her up until the last few days of her life, for which, she is ever so grateful.
On July 29, 2015 Ganase’s life completely changed when she was forced to save her mother’s life by pulling the trigger of her stepfather’s licensed gun killing him.
Her stepfather, Robert Seecharan, was a prisons officer and on a family outing two weeks ago, he began beating her mother and threatening to kill her with his gun. That’s when Ganase said she intervened and was able to take away the gun and shot him in self-defence.
On Wednesday, Sherry-Ann committed suicide by drinking a poisonous liquid while at her sister’s home at Seebalack Trace, Barrackpore. “We (referring to herself and her three siblings), were always so very close to our stepdad but closer to our mother. We all are hurting but nobody won’t know that, nobody won’t know how we feel inside and what we are going through,” Ganase said.
“It was very hard for me since the incident. My mother lost everything. Even before she died she tried making quarrels with me. I believe she was trying to push me away but I never allowed that. I stuck with her and looked out for her,” she said during an interview yesterday at Barrackpore. “At nights when I am trying to sleep I would hear my mother getting up and going downstairs and I would follow her just to make sure that she was ok. My mother was frustrated, she was always sad,” Ganase said.
Over two years ago, Ganase herself had a near-death experience after contracting a serious bout of food poisoning.
She was forced to drop out of school at the end of Form Two, aged 14.
What’s next for her, Ganase replied: “I am going to see my little brother, Brandon, go off to secondary school. God alone knows what will happen after.”
Yesterday, a team of police officers and social workers were at Ganase’s aunt’s house, Elizabeth, giving counselling to Ganase, her elder brother, Krishna, 19; her elder sister, Oma, 18 and her younger brother, Brandon, 12.“The counselling session went well but I don’t feel like I need it because I am dealing with it in my own way. I get tired and kind of irritated with people talking to me over and over but the session passed good,” Ganase said.
Sherry-Ann’s mother, Samdaye Rangoo, 63, said she also has many questions: “I questioning myself, saying what have I done wrong to deserve all this sadness and misery.” Rangoo in the past months have experienced several deaths in her family, including the death of her nephew, who was very ill; her son-in-law, Cyril Joseph (Elizabeth’s husband), who was fatally shot with a trap gun while in his garden on July 13, and now, Sherry-Ann’s suicide.
“If there was quick action and counselling was given to my daughter and granddaughter none of this would have happened. I think the entire family needs counselling now because this is very hard,” Rangoo said.
On August 6, on the day of her 36th birthday, Sherry-Ann was paid a special visit by a pastor, who spoke to her and prayed for her.