Imam Jamal Ali urged mourners at baby Kristiano Aziz’s funeral not to cast blame on the infant’s mother for his death.
Kristiano, two months old, died while at a daycare in Barrackpore on Monday.
The baby’s mother, Lisa Ramjattan, 26, found the child unresponsive when she went to pick him up from the daycare. He was lying on his tummy in a bed top pen.
The child was later pronounced dead at the Princes Town District Health Centre. An autopsy found his death was caused by positional asphyxia and his death has been ruled as accidental.
Speaking during the child’s funeral service at his grandparents’ home in Perry Young Road, Indian Walk, yesterday, Ali said none of those at the service were present when the child died. “It makes no sense to say things that you think may have happened, you were not there, so therefore you do not know,” Ali said. “It makes no sense talking about things you have no evidence of. “Do not point fingers and play the blame game with this mother, do not say what she should have done differently.”
Instead, he pleaded with family members to show silent solidarity with the parents. “The best thing you can do is stay quiet and be there for the parents, unless you are one of them (parents), you don’t know what happened here.
They have a hard time ahead and the least you can do is say nice, comforting things, instead of harassing them with questions.”
Ali lamented that justice is not very forthcoming in T&T. “You know that this pain lingers on...when you get no justification for what happened, the parents might be blaming themselves, looking for a reason for the death of this baby. Particularly as we are in a society where there is no justice...and the pain lingers on, it gets passed from generation to generation.”
He said T&T is hurting, as there seems to be no hope left for its people. He added, “In the times that we are living in, you can’t walk out by the roadway, for fear that someone will pass and gun you down.
There are places that you have to speed through, even though we have a speed limit, because to slow down could mean your death.”