| Tears flowed yesterday as friends, families, villagers and curious onlookers paid their last respects to rice farming couple, Mohamed Munir and his wife, Bibi Jamila, at their funeral service held at their Good Hope, East BankDead couple: Mohamed and Bibi Jamila MunirEssequibo (EBE) residence.People from all walks of life attended the service to pay their respects. Among the tributes, it was highlighted how loving,Cheap Jerseys From China, warm, kindhearted and how willing the couple was to give a helping hand to friends, family and villagers.Among those who gathered to pay their last respects to the Munirs were former President, Bharrat Jagdeo; Minister of Agriculture, Noel Holder; former Human Services Minister, Bibi Shadick and former Tourism Minister, Irfaan Ali among others.Three of the Munirs grandchildren stood in front of the large gathering and described the couple as brave and hard working people who never gave up. They toiled till the end for what they wanted.“We have all lost a part of ourselves. My grandfather was the most kind, most hardworking and most gentle person. My grandmother was the bravest woman. She was the driving force in our lives. They loved their family and their country,” they said.In tears, they continued, “They left us to be here in this beautiful country and we hope that this country would serve them the justice that they deserved.”Part of the crowd that attended the funeral.Jagdeo offered his condolences to the relatives of the dead couple.“It’s a pity that in this country today, hard work seems not to be recognized and accumulation based on hard work, and that people come in such a callous manner and see the fruits of hard work and try to snatch it away, and when they do not succeed they take lives in such a cruel manner,” Jagdeo said.“It is not a political event because no government in the world can stop crime. We too had our failure but what bothers me the most, is that it seems as though all the sentiments within our government are with the perpetrator and not the victims,” he said.He added that, “We don’t see them (government) go places where tragedy occur, where people are grieving and their lives snuff out in a callous manner. But we see negotiation in the prison with criminals and we heard about how many people were released from prison.”Meanwhile, the Working Peoples’ Alliance Overseas Associates (WPAOA) in a press release said that the brutal burning to death of Mr. and Mrs. Munir on Sunday is a grim reminder of the degenerated culture of brutality and people on people violence which has evolved to become epidemic in Guyana.According to the statement, Munir and Jamila, though unassuming to many in the upper echelons of Guyanese society, were among the small group of large rice farmers that emerged in the rice industry since 2000.Jamila was a prominent member of the Rice Producers’ Association, and is well-known in rice farming circles across the country.“The inhumanity and depravity demonstrated by this heinous act by persons so far not named, and unknown will undoubtedly send shock waves across the country, especially in the Indo-Guyanese farming communities.”WPAOA urges the authorities in Guyana, and its policing agencies to act with urgent haste to investigate, get to the bottom of this crime, and bring the perpetrators to justice.“The scale and terror of the criminal rampage in Guyana demand that every community, social, political, religious, cultural and labour organisations subscribe to a national effort to curtail crime and that the issue be depoliticized.”“Further, we call upon the government to engage in the broadest possible consultation in creating a viable policy and expedite reform in the security forces to enhance their professionalism and capacity to make our country safe and secure.”The bodies were taken to the Good Hope, EBE cemetery for burial.Mohamed Munir, 75, and his wife Bibi Jamila Munir, 69, perished shortly after 23:00 hrs on Sunday, after they were trapped in a raging fire that destroyed their heavily-grilled, two-storey house.Their badly burnt corpses were retrieved from the debris after the fire was finally extinguished.Eyewitnesses said that the blaze started in the upper flat and that the entire flat was engulfed within minutes.While some residents said that they had heard gunshots, post mortem examinations performed on the victims showed that they died from severe burns. |
