The fam­i­ly of six-month-old ba­by Maleek Khan was in shock last night af­ter he was mauled to death by the fam­i­ly dog at their home at Char­lieville, Ch­agua­nas.

Speak­ing with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, the ba­by's grand­fa­ther, Ne­shard Khan, 53, said they still could not un­der­stand why the dog, Sim­ba, a Rot­tweil­er and Ger­man Shep­herd mixed, would at­tack the ba­by boy.

Maleek is the on­ly child to Khan's son, Shayas, 30, and Vish­ma Bis­soon, 23.

The se­nior Khan told the T&T Guardian that ba­by Maleek was with his moth­er at their Jameel Street, Char­lieville, home around 4 pm when tragedy struck.

He said he was told Maleek was left in his pram by Bis­soon, who stepped away for a few min­utes. He said al­though Sim­ba was chained he man­aged to reach the ba­by boy and grabbed him by the head. The dog bit the ba­by about his face and when his moth­er ran to as­sist him she was bit­ten about her arm and head.

Neigh­bours helped res­cue ba­by Maleek, who was then rushed to the Ch­agua­nas Dis­trict Health Cen­tre, Mon­trose

"The dog is a big dog. I be­lieve that the ba­by was left too close to the dog. The dog grabbed on to him and that was it. I don't know where that moth­er went and what she went to do. I don't know why she left the ba­by so close to the dog," the dis­traught grand­fa­ther said.

Khan de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion when he got to the house af­ter learn­ing of the in­ci­dent as a night­mare.

"When I got there I saw blood all over the place and all I could have done was beat that dog and tell him 'look how you kill my grand­child.'

"It re­al sad. I re­al beat that dog you know, just to let the dog know that what he did was wrong," he added.

Khan said he in­tend­ed to sug­gest to his son the dog be put down "be­cause I don't want to see that dog ever again and I don't want that dog bit­ing or killing any­one else."

Khan said re­cent­ly he has been plagued with prob­lems and won­dered when his trou­bles would end.

He ex­plained that the ba­by's fa­ther, Shayas, iss not work­ing cur­rent­ly as he had suf­fered a bro­ken arm while on the job. An­oth­er of his sons, whose name he with­held for se­cu­ri­ty rea­sons, was al­leged­ly shot in the back of the neck by a po­lice of­fi­cer.

"I do not know when my trou­bles will end. Is on­ly one af­ter the oth­er I have to deal with," he said.

"Now, my grand­child! This one is the hard­est. I can­not deal with this but I have to re­main strong for my son, Shayas, and the rest of the fam­i­ly."

At the fam­i­ly's home last night, Shayas' un­cle, So­hil Khan, said the com­mu­ni­ty was in shock fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent. He said the dog was giv­en to the fam­i­ly one year ago but he be­lieved it was time to get rid of it, adding he was sur­prised the po­lice did not take away the dog when they vis­it­ed the home.

Par­batie Lutch­man, 32, a rel­a­tive of the ba­by's moth­er, added: "We don't know what to say. We all loved the ba­by, now he is gone, what can we do or say."

Up to late last night of­fi­cers from the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion, along with Crime Scene In­ves­ti­ga­tors, were at the Khan's res­i­dence pro­cess­ing the scene.

Ba­by Maleek is ex­pect­ed to be buried to­day un­der Mus­lim rites.

– Re­port­ing by SHAS­TRI BOODAN