It was one of the most touching domestic violence stories that I have ever reported on.
With tears flowing freely and trembling with emotion, Nandranie Bachu related a life of beatings and confinement for eight years at the hands of her reputed husband and father of one of her two children.
Such was the extent of her harrowing ordeal that Bachu attempted to end her life last month by ingesting 46 ‘bilious wash’ tablets.
But if she thought that that would have caused her reputed husband to think twice about his mistreatment of her she was wrong. The beatings and the confinement continued.
It has now gone a step further. Other women who are linked to her reputed husband are now threatening Bachu’s life.
Although she has become a constant visitor to several police stations along the East Coast of Demerara, the 29-year-old woman from Haslington believes that there is no hope of ending the violence in her life and she is still contemplating ending it all by committing suicide.
Bachu visited Kaieteur News yesterday and being the person who deals with the police beat, and having heard other tales of domestic violence, I was overwhelmed by her story.
The woman recalled that she met her reputed husband, who works in the sugar industry, eight years ago. The union bore a child.
Together they built a house and throughout the relationship she has suffered beatings, burnings and verbal humiliation. Never has the man been made to pay.
Bachu admitted that at first she was reluctant to go to the police, since like most other abused women, she gave the relationship a chance and also did not feel that the police would have taken the proper action.
But as things got worse, she had to make a courageous decision, even if it meant experiencing further beatings in retribution from the abuser.
Several reports were made to the police, and despite their efforts to arrest the suspect, he always managed to elude them.
True enough, every time the police got involved, Bachu would suffer more beatings and further humiliation from women with whom her reputed husband developed relationships.
Ever so often throughout the interview, she would break down as if she were living through the brutal moments as she related her story. Every time I had to stop the questioning to allow her to cry.
“The other night he bun me on me breast. I never go back to de station because I afraid of de man,” the abused woman recalled.
The recent beatings are stemming from Bachu questioning her reputed husband about a relationship he is having with a female villager.
“I cannot talk in the house, I dare not use indecent language to him, speak too hard, I cannot watch television. I can’t do nothing wah me feel like in me own home,” she cried.
Even Bachu’s two children suffer since the man uses all kinds of indecent remarks in their presence.
On Easter Monday she sustained another beating.
Bachu recalled that she was in the process of taking her children to the Hope Beach to fly their kites when her reputed husband who has been hiding from the police confronted her.
A few words were exchanged and the man proceeded to beat her with a piece of wood about her body, which bore the visible signs of a brutal beating.
“I get so frustrated that I drink poison. I so frustrated right now that I could end it because the licks is too much and no justice,” she said, desperately trying not to cry.
She said that she has visited the Enmore Outpost on several occasions previously, but to no avail. She was quick to point out that the police at the Cove and John station have been very helpful.
Police there confirmed that they are on the hunt for the suspect since they are giving all allegations of domestic violence the priority they deserve.