<B>Raped woman found dead at home</B>

The Ramsurrun family are still in a state of shock after Amit found his mother lying dead outside the toilet of their house in Sebastopol last Saturday around 3 o’clock in the morning. The police are still enquiring to know what really happened. Forensic scientist, Dr Kumar Gungadin, said the victim was raped and strangled. Amit came back from work around 11.15 pm on Friday night and went striaght to bed, thinking his mother was sleeping in her bedroom. It is only when he went to the toilet in the early morning that he found his mother lying naked with her body covered with wounds. The Major Crime Investigation Team led by SP Prem Raddhoa believe she was attacked by two or three persons. Five people were taken in for questioning but they were immediately released after giving their alibis. However, the police are confident that they will be able to shed light on this horrible crime very quickly. Even though they did not want to say much about their suspicions, they nevertheless confided that they believe the suspects are from the region. Amit is still in shock. He doesn’t understand how this could have happened; he can’t understand how he didn’t hear anything. He had been to Triolet to have dinner with some friends. He asserted that he always told his mother when he would come back late or wouldn’t come back at all – in which case she always made arrangements to sleep at her mother’s place. The family have only one hope now: that the criminals will be found and punished.

<B>Poisoned and stoned to death</B>

He had been “missing” since 26th April; his body was finally found in a ravine in the region where he lived, Vuillemin, Quartier-Militaire. Sex and money seem to be at the origin of 78 year-old Ayoob Bhoojul’s death. His two tenants, Darmen Oomye, 27, and Ritabhai Toocaram, 28, confessed to the crime after being arrested by the Major Crime Investigation Team in Albion. They explained to the police that their landlord was becoming a nuisance. They owed him money that they couldn’t reimburse, so the latter asked to be paid in kind. Ritabhai Toocaram asserted to the police she had had sexual relations with their landlord on several occasions. They said they could not stand this situation anymore so they gave him poison and then finished him off in the ravine where they stoned him.

<B>More expensive consumer products </B>

The rising value of the rand and the euro will lead to an increase in the prices of consumer pro-ducts. While the cost of fruit juice and medicines has already gone up, other products such as wine, cheese or cereals will follow the same trend in the next few days. Supermarket owners are aware of the problem and many of them intend to reduce their profit margin so that consumers do not suffer too much from the rise. As for medicines, the rise in those two currencies has already had an effect on local pharmacies. With the chikungunya virus, many medicines have been out of stock and have been ordered from South Africa and Europe. As a result, they are already more expensive. The solution may be to diversify supply sources. But importers hope this will not last long.

Sceptical about future economy</B>