“Very emo­tion­al­ly dis­tressed.”

That was how a close fe­male rel­a­tive yes­ter­day de­scribed 44-year-old Jankie Satie Karim, who was left scarred af­ter be­ing res­cued by po­lice on Mon­day evening, fol­low­ing eight har­row­ing days in the hands of her kid­nap­pers.

Karim, a moth­er of one, had van­ished af­ter be­ing kid­napped on Ju­ly 13 un­til she was found in an aban­doned beach house along the To­co Main Road in Ram­panal­gas, alive but trau­ma­tised. A ran­som de­mand was made, how­ev­er Guardian Me­dia Ltd could not con­firm if it was paid.

The dra­mat­ic res­cue un­fold­ed around 6.30 pm on Mon­day when of­fi­cers of the Mul­ti-Op­tion Po­lice Sec­tion (MOPS), the An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Unit (AKU), and the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (SIU) stormed the derelict two-storey struc­ture un­der the cov­er of dusk. The team moved in swift­ly, act­ing on ver­i­fied in­tel­li­gence.

The cou­ple said to have been stand­ing guard was caught by sur­prise by the of­fi­cers.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, the male sus­pect opened fire on of­fi­cers, prompt­ing them to re­turn fire. He was wound­ed in the ex­change, af­ter which his fe­male ac­com­plice re­port­ed­ly sur­ren­dered. The sus­pect, whose iden­ti­ty had not been con­firmed up to yes­ter­day, lat­er died at the hos­pi­tal from his in­juries.

He is be­lieved to be a 24-year-old man from Sea Lots, with fam­i­ly in the To­co area, and was known to vil­lagers.

Mean­while, of­fi­cers act­ing on in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ed to the kid­nap­ping un­der the com­mand of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro; As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP), Crime, Richard Smith; Snr Supt Win­ston Ma­haraj; and Supt An­der­son Pa­ri­man lat­er went to a house at Pi­ar­co Old Road where they re­port­ed­ly con­front­ed an­oth­er man, be­lieved to be con­nect­ed with Karim’s kid­nap­ping.

Dur­ing the in­ci­dent at Ali Jhan Lane, po­lice al­leged­ly killed Zechari­ah Williams, 24, dur­ing a con­fronta­tion.

As de­tails of Karim’s har­row­ing or­deal emerged yes­ter­day, rel­a­tives strug­gled to un­der­stand why she was tar­get­ed.

Karim was re­port­ed­ly blind­fold­ed and de­prived of food and wa­ter, held cap­tive in a dark, damp house where the on­ly sound was the crash­ing of waves near­by.

Mean­while, the kid­nap­pers were “bor­row­ing” elec­tric­i­ty from the neigh­bour­ing house to charge their cell­phones.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the house of hor­rors yes­ter­day, a pile of food box­es and wa­ter bot­tles were seen flung un­der a co­conut tree at the back of the house, which did not have a wa­ter or an elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply.

The win­dows were board­ed up with pieces of ply­wood and gal­vanise sheet­ing, while a dirty cur­tain hung in the door­way lead­ing in­to the house.

In­side, there were no doors, and a sin­gle white fold­ing chair sat in­side. The frame of an old couch was shoved in­to a cor­ner, while a roll of rusty wire lay be­neath the wood­en stairs, and old cloth­ing was strewn across the floor.

The door lead­ing to the out­side was the on­ly source of light il­lu­mi­nat­ing the in­side, as gaps in the wood­en slats would have al­lowed sun­light through.

As res­i­dents along Anoop Street, Bassie Street Ex­ten­sion, Spring Vil­lage, qui­et­ly cel­e­brat­ed the safe re­cov­ery of Karim yes­ter­day, her fam­i­ly re­mained locked be­hind doors, scared to ven­ture out.

Re­spond­ing to an ap­peal by Guardian Me­dia for any in­for­ma­tion as to Karim’s con­di­tion, a fe­male rel­a­tive on­ly said, “She is emo­tion­al­ly dis­tressed. She is in no con­di­tion to talk.”

Rel­a­tives: Why us?

In­di­cat­ing Karim and her fam­i­ly were not at home, the woman begged for an an­swer to the ques­tion, “Why us?”

Fight­ing back tears as she thanked God for Karim’s safe re­turn, she added, “The fam­i­ly is ap­pre­cia­tive of the out­pour­ing of prayers and sup­port.”

El­der­ly res­i­dent Prem­nath Ma­haraj said, “We feel good.”

The 64-year-old praised the po­lice for their ef­forts to re­cov­er Karim as he said, “They do good!”

How­ev­er, a younger man who did not wish to be named, liv­ing along the street, in­sist­ed life in T&T was “very un­com­fort­able” right now for law-abid­ing cit­i­zens.

He lev­elled ac­cu­sa­tions of cor­rup­tion at the po­lice as he in­sist­ed, “That is the biggest gang op­er­at­ing right now.”

The man said cit­i­zens had no one to trust or turn to since of­fi­cers in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties were lead­ing the charge, mak­ing it hard for any­one to be­lieve pos­i­tive change was pos­si­ble.

Dis­agree­ing with this as they com­ment­ed on the res­cue, at least two el­der­ly men at Ram­panal­gas agreed the po­lice “had done ex­cel­lent work”.

Sit­ting un­der a shed a short dis­tance from where Karim was be­ing kept, one of the men who has been a res­i­dent of the area for over 60 years said, “We feel­ing all how cause that nev­er hap­pen here be­fore.”

“When I hear the first shot, I say some­body pound some­thing, but then I hear all the rest of them shots.”

The oth­er man added, “We used to see the girl (who was ar­rest­ed) pass­ing, go­ing to the shop and buy­ing food. We didn’t mac­co she be­fore, but then we see she again, and them boy and them say like they rent the place.”

The woman’s boyfriend was iden­ti­fied as the sus­pect killed by po­lice dur­ing the fire­fight.

“We see her af­ter three, com­ing to four o’clock yes­ter­day ... come and go back, come and go back ... no­body ain’t know. That house is not rent­ed to any­body, it kin­da aban­doned.”

Dis­miss­ing con­cerns that the cou­ple’s pres­ence had seemed sus­pi­cious, one of the men said, “Plen­ty peo­ple ac­cus­tomed go­ing there and fish­ing in the back by the riv­er mouth, so no­body ain’t look­ing at that.”

Asked if they were fright­ened now, the two said no.

How­ev­er, this was not the same for Miss M, who had been stay­ing in the house next door to where Karim had been found.

Set on ring­ing in her 69th birth­day in soli­tude, the world trav­eller said, “There’s an or­gan­ised sit­u­a­tion go­ing on here. I came here Thurs­day, and be­tween Fri­day and Sat­ur­day, about six men were just com­ing in and out here. Just walk­ing through the house, through that door. Long be­fore any kid­nap­ping sto­ry. Six men just ap­peared be­tween Fri­day and Sat­ur­day be­cause they didn’t see a car.

“So they didn’t know some­body was there. I was in the house and there was one man who fly in here and I was sit­ting down there and he run. He kind of back up and run back and left.”

Say­ing she was shak­en around mid­night on Sun­day to find an un­known man at­tempt­ing to break down the bed­room door and or­der­ing her out of his room, Miss M added, “That man was com­ing to kill me up­stairs. He told me that I’m com­ing back to kill you.”

She said she made a bunker out of sheets and pil­lows as gun­shots rang out on Mon­day and lay on the wood­en floor for three hours un­til po­lice ar­rived and in­struct­ed her to stay put.

It was on­ly yes­ter­day, af­ter news be­gan to cir­cu­late, that she learnt Karim had been held against her will in the house next door.

She too com­mend­ed the po­lice for their pro­fes­sion­al­ism and calm.

“They were very po­lite. They were very com­pas­sion­ate. They were very good. I am so im­pressed with the po­lice in this coun­try be­cause I’ve had two in­ci­dents where I had to go and re­port some­thing. I mean, they are so supreme­ly trained. Nowhere else in the world. I’m telling you, po­lice are as cor­dial or on spot.

“Those guys came in that room. It was ac­tu­al­ly six of them. You could hear a breeze blow. Six men with (big guns) in their hands. They came in my room, and nor­mal­ly I’m good with en­er­gy. I feel peo­ple’s en­er­gy. I did not feel any­thing they did. It was as if they were in­vis­i­ble. It was very good.”

The home­own­er said she now wants to sell the prop­er­ty, as she is un­sure of what is hap­pen­ing in the once qui­et and much-loved sea­side vil­lage.