Arianna’s dad demands justice

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Grief-strick­en fa­ther Suresh Ram­di­al is plead­ing for an­swers and jus­tice af­ter the sud­den death of his 11-year-old daugh­ter, Ar­i­an­na Ram­di­al.

The tragedy has since shak­en a school com­mu­ni­ty and left a fam­i­ly frac­tured.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, the dev­as­tat­ed fa­ther said he at­tend­ed his daugh­ter’s post-mortem ex­am­i­na­tion but agreed to al­low ad­di­tion­al foren­sic tests to be con­duct­ed.

As a re­sult, the ex­am­i­na­tion is now ex­pect­ed to take place on Mon­day, pro­long­ing the ag­o­nis­ing wait for clar­i­ty about how the Stan­dard Four pupil died.

“Up to this morn­ing, when I asked the peo­ple to run fur­ther tests down in the morgue, she was vex with me for ask­ing to run fur­ther tests to see if it’s drugs that kill she or if it is from the sex­u­al abuse or what is it. I need some kind of jus­tice for my child.”

Ar­i­an­na, a stu­dent of the Ca­roni Hin­du Pri­ma­ry School, died at hos­pi­tal on Thurs­day af­ter days of ill­ness.

How­ev­er, there are con­flict­ing ac­counts from rel­a­tives and school of­fi­cials about Ar­i­an­na’s con­di­tion be­fore her death, deep­en­ing the mys­tery sur­round­ing her fi­nal days.

Through tears yes­ter­day, Suresh de­scribed a bond with his daugh­ter that en­dured de­spite his sep­a­ra­tion from her moth­er.

“She takes my eyes. I grieve for her a lot since we’ve been sep­a­rat­ed by the par­ents, by the mom. I grieve for her a lot from back then un­til when I heard she passed away that morn­ing,” he said.

He re­called a haunt­ing fi­nal in­ter­ac­tion, a sim­ple act of love, that nev­er reached his child.

On the morn­ing she died, Suresh said he was head­ing out to find work lay­ing tiles when he en­coun­tered Ar­i­an­na’s moth­er around dawn in Curepe.

“Around 5 am, I buy some fruits and I tell her to car­ry it for my daugh­ter. She nev­er got to eat the fruits, she passed away be­fore.”

The fa­ther said the news left him shat­tered.

“When I heard she passed away that morn­ing, I was dev­as­tat­ed.”

Suresh al­so made trou­bling claims that his daugh­ter had pre­vi­ous­ly dis­closed sex­u­al abuse to him, an al­le­ga­tion he be­lieves was nev­er prop­er­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

“That rape took place in 2024, Au­gust or Sep­tem­ber. I on­ly saw my child in June 2025. That was the first time I saw her since the rap­ing, and that is the on­ly time I get to find out from my daugh­ter her­self.”

He said when he con­front­ed the child’s moth­er, he was told the mat­ter had been “han­dled,” but he dis­agreed strong­ly.

“It’s not be­ing han­dled how it’s sup­posed to. That length of time peo­ple are sup­posed to be ar­rest­ed by now, an in­ves­ti­ga­tion sup­posed to be go­ing on and noth­ing ever takes place,” he com­plained.

Suresh said he con­tact­ed the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty hot­line at the time, hop­ing in­ter­ven­tion would fol­low.

Guardian Me­dia con­firmed that the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’s Spe­cial Vic­tims Unit was in­ves­ti­gat­ing a re­port of sex­u­al abuse against the child.

On Thurs­day, a se­nior of­fi­cial from the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha, which op­er­ates the school, said the or­gan­i­sa­tion was “deeply hurt and dev­as­tat­ed” by her death, not­ing that in­ves­ti­ga­tions by po­lice and the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion are un­der­way.

Ma­ha Sab­ha sec­re­tary gen­er­al Vi­jay Ma­haraj in­di­cat­ed that ini­tial re­ports from school of­fi­cials sug­gest­ed bruis­ing had been ob­served on the child and there were re­ports of pos­si­ble abuse.

“Our chil­dren are deeply trau­ma­tised at this point,” Ma­haraj said.

How­ev­er, a close rel­a­tive sub­se­quent­ly dis­put­ed those claims, in­sist­ing there were no signs of vi­o­lence and sug­gest­ing Ar­i­an­na had in­stead been bul­lied at school. Ac­cord­ing to the rel­a­tive, the child com­plained of shoul­der pain af­ter be­ing pushed against a con­crete sink by an­oth­er child and lat­er de­vel­oped fever, vom­it­ing and weak­ness.

Ar­i­an­na was re­port­ed­ly treat­ed at Mt Hope Pae­di­atric Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal and lat­er re­ferred again, af­ter a vis­it to the St He­le­na Health Cen­tre when her con­di­tion wors­ened.

Med­ical per­son­nel re­port­ed­ly di­ag­nosed gas­troen­teri­tis dur­ing an ear­li­er vis­it, though the child’s health con­tin­ued to de­te­ri­o­rate. A rel­a­tive not­ed that the child’s con­di­tion wors­ened af­ter be­ing ad­min­is­tered med­ica­tion to ease her pain.

Po­lice have not con­firmed any ver­sion of events pub­licly. Of­fi­cers have in­ter­viewed the child’s moth­er as part of stan­dard pro­ce­dure, and au­thor­i­ties say the of­fi­cial cause of death will be de­ter­mined dur­ing the au­top­sy.

Yes­ter­day, Suresh lament­ed that the con­flict­ing nar­ra­tives on­ly deep­en his an­guish. Stand­ing be­tween grief and unan­swered ques­tions, he de­scribed a pain no par­ent should en­dure.

“I grieve for her a lot.”

Guardian Me­dia is await­ing a re­sponse from the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty on the mat­ter.