RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

With tears flow­ing as she stood out­side the fam­i­ly’s El So­cor­ro, San Juan house yes­ter­day, Rosi­na Ram­dawar thanked God for safe­ly re­turn­ing her niece, Ane­sha Nar­ine-Bood­hoo, to her fam­i­ly from the hands of kid­nap­pers.

Nar­ine-Bood­hoo, a moth­er of two, re­port­ed­ly re­turned home at about 4 am. How­ev­er, po­lice sources re­mained tight-lipped as to whether she es­caped, was re­leased or was res­cued by po­lice.

Guardian Me­dia was told by po­lice sources that a sum of $60,000 was paid to the al­leged kid­nap­pers for her safe re­lease, but Snr Supt Mervyn Ed­wards, min­utes af­ter he walked out of Nar­ine-Bood­hoo’s home at Girez Lane, El So­cor­ro Road, yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, con­firmed that no ran­som was paid.

Asked about the $60,000 ran­som fig­ure that was was bandied about, Ed­wards said he didn’t know any­thing about that and re­peat­ed no ran­som was paid.

Ed­wards then said Nar­ine-Bood­hoo was at home and had been re­unit­ed with fam­i­ly mem­bers and was sur­round­ed by them at the time.

Guardian Me­dia was told ear­li­er that Nar­ine-Bood­hoo was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal, where she was med­ical­ly ex­am­ined.

There were dif­fer­ing re­ports about how she gained her free­dom and her con­di­tion when she re­turned home. One re­port stat­ed Nar­ine-Bood­hoo walked in­to her home at 4 am and was un­hurt but very trau­ma­tised.

Speak­ing with mem­bers of the me­dia, Ram­dawar said she too was not clear on the cir­cum­stances.

“I couldn’t sleep. I got up and held on to my mur­ti and said a prayer for her. She is my niece, my broth­er’s daugh­ter. I prayed for her to re­turn home safe­ly and now I feel good,” Ram­dawar said.

“This morn­ing (Tues­day) I went to the clin­ic and when I got in the taxi, I heard the news and de­cid­ed to come see her. I live two streets away from here and I come straight to see her. I re­al­ly feel­ing good but I don’t know how she reached home here, if she es­caped or if the po­lice found her.”

There were sev­er­al po­lice of­fi­cers en­ter­ing Nar­ine-Bood­hoo’s home and a team re­mained seat­ed in an SUV parked in front of the main gate through­out the day.

Neigh­bours, who wished to speak un­der strict anonymi­ty, thanked God for Nar­ine-Bood­hoo’s safe re­lease.

One neigh­bour said, “Well, I heard it ear­ly this morn­ing that she is home and she is ok. Thank God they didn’t kill her or any­thing be­cause she is a good per­son. Every­body likes her.”

An­oth­er neigh­bour said, “You hear­ing all kinds of things since the kid­nap­ping but I’m glad to hear she back home safe and sound. The po­lice should ar­rest the peo­ple be­hind it and put them be­hind bars. Crime is a run­away horse and no­body cares.”

Nar­ine-Bood­hoo was snatched from her SUV out­side the fam­i­ly’s busi­ness, Au­tora­ma Ltd, by four men who were dressed in what ap­peared to be po­lice tac­ti­cal uni­forms and in a ve­hi­cle with flash­ing blue lights.

On Sat­ur­day, po­lice found a burnt-out shell of a Toy­ota Rush ve­hi­cle, sim­i­lar to the one used in the kid­nap­ping, in Cen­teno, south of the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way.