A
GRIEVING East Coast Demerara family is deeply hurt over a
page one story in yesterday’s Kaieteur News which
claimed that

Hemram
Chandra Singh, 35, died while he was making
an illegal electricity supply connection.
His
wife, Prampattie Sooknandan, 30, of Lot 83 Ramsingh
Street, North Annandale, shocked at the newspaper story,
said her husband was not stealing electricity.
She
said that at about 13:00 h Sunday, Singh was fixing his
bicycle under their house when he left and went to the
refrigerator to get water to drink.
She
told the Chronicle
that as he held the handle of the refrigerator, his hand
stuck to it and shortly after he fell to the floor.
“I
tried to separate him from the fridge but he was stuck”,
his wife said.
She
said he was unconscious when he fell and she alerted
neighbours and together they tried to revive him.
She
added that she immediately went and turned off the power
to the refrigerator.
Her
husband died at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation
while receiving treatment, the grieving widow said
yesterday.
Sooknandan
added that shortly after the tragedy, a team from Guyana
Power and Light (GPL) visited and checked the internal
electrical wiring of the house.
The
team advised her to have a certified electrician rewire
the entire house and said they will revisit to check.
She
said the refrigerator, a Mercury brand, was a family
present she received several years ago and never had any
problem with it.
As the family tried to
come to grips with the tragedy of losing a husband and
father, their distress deepened yesterday with the story
in the Kaieteur News which indicated that Singh was
helping a friend steal electricity when he was
electrocuted.
"My
husband never tried to make an illegal connection as was
stated in the Kaieteur News article” and he was in the
bottom flat of their two-storey house when the accident
happened, she said.