KUALA LUMPUR: “I was stunned. My son had collapsed in front of me, his head was smashed.”
Those were the words of M S Kasthuribai, 45, recalling the tragic moment her son, S Sathiwaran, died after being struck on the head by a chair, thrown from the upper floor of the Pantai Dalam People’s Housing Project (PPR), last night.
Sathiwaran, a student of Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan La Salle, Petaling Jaya, was accompanying his mother when tragedy struck.
Kasthuribai said she and her son had just arrived at Block 102 Seri Pantai after returning from delivering food to her disabled brother, who lived in the same area.
Just before they were about to go up their home on the 16th floor, Sathiwaran, who is the youngest in the family, had told his mother that he wanted to stop by the shop and get a reload card as he needed it to compete his homework.
“I waited for him at the block near the shop. I saw him walking towards me. As he approached me, out of nowhere, a chair hurtled down and struck him.
“I cradled him. I shook his body, but he was dead. I screamed for help,” she said when met at her home today.
Kasthuribai, who is left traumatised by the incident, repeatedly said she cannot sleep as the episode keeps playing in her mind.
She has yet to come to terms with the fact that her son is gone.
Wiping away tears, Kasthuribai said she and her son had spent an hour talking in the car as they made their way back from her brother’s house.
“Yesterday, in the car, Sathiwaran told me to quit my job. ‘Let me work. I want to buy a house for you’, he said. I am shattered..I’ve lost a good son,” she said.
Meanwhile, her husband, K Sathiasilan, 45, said he was just about to leave from his office in Damansara Jaya when his wife rang him at 8pm, telling him that their son had died.
“I was very close to him. He often slept next to me in the living room.
“The neighbours here known him well as he was always helping people out. So many people loved him,” said Sathiasilan.
The family had earlier received visits from Deputy Federal Territories Minister Datuk Dr Loga Bala Mohan; Lembah Pantai Umno chief Datuk Seri Raja Nong Chik Raja Zainal Abidin, and Lembah Pantai MP Nurul Izzah Anwar.
Meanwhile, Brickfields police chief Assistant Commissioner Ruslan Khalid said they have not made any arrests yet and are still searching for the culprit.
Translated from Berita Harian