DNA closure for family
AFTER 10 months of waiting, a Merebank family will bury their loved one today.
The Rampartab family will finally receive some closure after the DNA results on a decomposing body was conducted after 10 months, confirming it was their loved one.
But Keshnie Rampartab still has a heavy heart. She has not been told the cause of her husband Pregasen’s death.
Two days after POST published the family’s plight last week, authorities requested that Keshnie submit his photographs to them.
By Friday, it was confirmed that the body, found lodged between a concrete wall and a fence near the overhead bridge on Himalaya Drive in Merebank, was his.
“It has been a long journey and although we feel pain, we are happy his final rites can be conducted,” said Keshnie, who was married to Pregasen for seven years.
She said this week she had to inform their son, 7, that he would not be able to see his dad’s face for the last time.
“He asked why there would be a closed casket and I had to explain that the body had decomposed. He is upset.”
Pregasen, 31, of Jhelum Road, Merebank, had been missing since March 4 last year. A body was found 12 days later, metres from his home.
The family identified him by a tattoo on his foot and the red T-shirt he had been wearing, but the police refused to release the body until the investigation was completed.