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  Intl. & NRI News |
| Trinidadian Indian Victim of Atlanta Shooting |
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Intl. & NRI News |
| Trinidadian Indian Victim of Atlanta Shooting |
By: Vishnu Bisram
Atlanta, July 31, 1999
Dr Kesturkoppal Murlidhara, the husband of Vadewattee Maharaj Murlidhara, has still not come to terms with the senseless killing of his wife at a brokerage firm in Atlanta on Thursday. Vadewattee, aged 44, formerly of Arouca, Trinidad, and an ex-employee of the Bank of Commerce in Port of Spain, was gunned down last Thursday by Mark Barton, a day stock trader in Atlanta at a brokerage firm where she was undergoing computer training.
"At the time of the shooting, Vadewattee was not employed at the firm", said a grieving Murlidhara who also noted that his wife did not have any relatives in the Atlanta region.
Two of Vadewattee's sisters, Vidya and Indira Maharaj, left Trinidad Friday morning and arrived in Atlanta via Miami late afternoon, to assist the family with funeral arrangements.
Murlidhara said his mother-in-law (Rajdai Maharaj) could not travel to Atlanta because she had to be with a sick son at home.
"She requests that I take the body home. She wants her daughter to be in her home for a final time and I have agreed because Vadewattee has so many family members, brothers and sisters and relatives in Trinidad and they all live very close. In addition, hundreds of pilgrims from around the world will be congregating in Central Trinidad beginning this Wednesday for a spiritual meeting which Vadewattee had been contemplating attending. So it would be most appropriate to hold the funeral in Trinidad."
Swami Datta of Mysore India, who has thousands of followers, including Vadewattee and her husband, will preside over the large spiritual congregation in Carapichima. It is not clear if he will also attend the funeral or assist in the funeral rites.
Murlidhara also noted that he and his two children, Arti (20, a student at Georgia Tech) and Rishi (18, a student at Georgia All State), and the two sisters who flew in from Trinidad will accompany the body back to Trinidad for the final rites.
According to Murlidhara, the body will repose for viewing on Sunday afternoon at a funeral home near where he lives in the Atlanta region and will be shipped to Trinidad on Wednesday "for a traditional full Hindu funeral ceremony on Thursday". The remains will be cremated at the banks of the Caroni River.
The family is in terrible grief and still in deep shock. Murlidhara said that the graphic details of what happened to his wife was revealed to him by an eyewitness friend who was also undergoing training at the brokerage house.
Choking back tears, he said: "I don't want to give you the details. It is just too much for me to bear at this time. It makes me very upset. I can't eat and I can't talk. My two kids are having so much difficulty accepting what happened. They too can't eat. We are trying to cope with this horrendous tragedy that has struck our close-knit family."
Murlidhara said his wife, as was told to him by a friend, was the third to be shot and she died instantly.
"The shooting occurred at Building number 8 on the second floor where there are some 20 computers, one of which my wife was using earlier. I am familiar with the floor because I have been there several times with my wife. I was told that the gunman was right behind her just one yard away and opened fire on her after killing two other people. She had no chance to escape. She did not have time to run. There was no chance for her to survive the rampage. She died on the spot." Murlidhara travelled all the way from Bangalore to Trinidad where he met his beautiful wife-to-be.
They fell in love and got married 22 years ago; he was a pediatrician at two hospitals in Trinidad until the family moved in 1994 to Atlanta. There he became attached to three hospitals as a pediatrician and she worked at Wachovia Bank. She wanted to go into stock trading and so decided to pursue a four-week computer course at Atlanta All-Tech Investment Group. She was about to complete her third week in training when she was killed.
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 Intl. & NRI News |