An­na-Lisa Paul

It's been ten years and three months since Naail Ali was kid­napped and killed.

Yet, the tears con­tin­ue to flow for his moth­er and fa­ther as eas­i­ly as they did on that fate­ful day in Oc­to­ber 2008.

Ali was 26 years old when he was snatched on June 10, 2008, by gun­men and bun­dled in­to a car out­side the fam­i­ly’s busi­ness—A&S Hard­ware and Fur­ni­ture Store lo­cat­ed along the Bonne Aven­ture Road in Gas­par­il­lo.

Al­though a ran­som was paid, Ali was nev­er re­turned to his fam­i­ly.

In­stead, his moth­er, Sher­i­ma, guid­ed by her de­ceased son in a dream, helped po­lice of­fi­cers lo­cate his skele­tal re­mains in a shal­low grave at Ma­coya three-and-a-half years lat­er.

And while the or­deal in­evitably al­tered how Ali's fam­i­ly op­er­ate dai­ly, they nev­er once imag­ined the night­mare could re­turn.

Ali's fa­ther, Aaseen "Tik­ki" Ali, speak­ing with the Sun­day Guardian, said cert­ian de­vel­op­ments more than two weeks ago led him to re­quest an ur­gent meet­ing with Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith.

He claimed that the in­for­ma­tion point­ed to peo­ple in­volved in the kid­nap­ping of his son who are still "walk­ing free".

Ali said he con­tact­ed Tabaquite MP Dr Su­ruj Ram­bachan af­ter the man con­vict­ed with Naail's kid­nap­ping and mur­der wrote two let­ters to him sev­er­al weeks ago, dis­clos­ing per­ti­nent in­for­ma­tion about the in­ci­dent and those in­volved.

Ali said the sus­pect, who con­vert­ed to Is­lam while be­hind bars, claimed he is ready to turn over the in­for­ma­tion to the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to en­sure that the busi­ness­man and his fam­i­ly do not con­tin­ue to re­main at the mer­cy of the crim­i­nal el­e­ments.

How­ev­er, Ali and his fam­i­ly have re­fused to cow­er in fear even though their free­dom was tak­en away the day Naail was kid­napped.

'We live in a cage'

Wip­ing the tears which rolled down his cheeks as he spoke of how Naail's kid­nap­ping and mur­der had changed the way they op­er­ate, Ali said they no longer en­joy that sense of se­cu­ri­ty so many peo­ple take for grant­ed.

"Of course, it changed how we op­er­ate, how we trav­el to go home, every­thing...We go out in fam­i­ly groups when we have to move to and from home.

"We can pay se­cu­ri­ty but it is a cost­ly ex­er­cise and in this try­ing time, how much can we pay?"

Re­flect­ing on the or­deal, Ali said, "What we went through, no par­ent should ever have to go through that."

Naail is on their mind dai­ly, Ali said, but their great­est wor­ry is about the well-be­ing of their on­ly sur­viv­ing son, Kaleem and daugh­ter-in-law who are un­able to en­joy a care­free lifestyle like so many young peo­ple nowa­days.

Every time Kaleem goes out the door, his heart beats a lit­tle faster.

He said, "We live in a cage, in a cell now...we are very vig­i­lant in all our deal­ings and we hard­ly go any­where in the night-time. Even when my own broth­er in­vites me, I do not go be­cause you are al­ways scared, you do not know what is the next move by these guys. I have fenced my house, put in every­thing elec­tron­ic and any­thing you can think about se­cu­ri­ty-wise."

The fam­i­ly agreed that the on­ly time they can tru­ly let their guard down is while on hol­i­days abroad.

Kaleem said, "In or­der for us to en­joy a va­ca­tion, we have to close the busi­ness for a week or two and pay the work­ers full pay to stay home so we can fly out and have a breather and come back.

"And even then, it is so in­grained in us that when we go away, we are con­stant­ly look­ing around and won­der­ing."

Ac­knowl­edg­ing how stress­ful his life had be­come since the in­ci­dent, Ali said Kaleem and his wife have stepped in to help share the bur­den but he was to­tal­ly un­able to re­lin­quish that con­trol.

Ris­ing as ear­ly as 3 am dai­ly, Ali said he has to con­stant­ly be in­volved in an ac­tiv­i­ty in or­der to stay sane.

He said this was the main rea­son he has ex­pe­ri­enced growth in busi­ness across sev­er­al medi­ums in­clud­ing re­al es­tate, the con­struc­tion/hard­ware in­dus­try, and the fur­ni­ture and ap­pli­ances sec­tor.

"Imag­ine work­ing so hard and you can't en­joy it be­cause we don't have the right to free­dom of en­joy­ment in this coun­try."

Ali said his ap­pli­ca­tion for use of a firearm more than ten years ago has not been ac­knowl­edged. He is hope­ful the cur­rent CoP would act on his ap­pli­ca­tion.

Sur­viv­ing through prayers

Swal­low­ing sev­er­al times be­fore she could speak as her eyes filled with tears, Sher­i­ma opened her palms face up as she looked down lost in thoughts of Naail.

Say­ing she does not have the courage to re­move any­thing from Naail's room since he died, Sher­i­ma con­tin­ues to leave it as he left it when he walked out of the home on June 10, 2008. "I talk to him every day. I still feel like hav­ing it there is like hav­ing a part of him there. I don't know with time what will hap­pen though but it is not easy and it was not a nor­mal death, it was cru­el."

Asked how she found the strength to car­ry on, Ali's wife said, "We pray a lot, we trust in God and hope. Up to now, to sleep, you have to put a block in your mind and I choose prayers to get out of this."

She re­called hear­ing Naail cry­ing, beg­ging, and shout­ing on the phone, "It was hard then and it is still hard now, but to get through the day that is what I do."

Sher­i­ma said al­though they had got­ten a bit of ease af­ter Naail's re­mains were dis­cov­ered, they would nev­er achieve clo­sure.

Hav­ing just re­turned from Ha­jj where she was able to com­plete her own jour­ney and Naail's, Sher­i­ma ad­mit­ted it had brought her a greater mea­sure of peace than be­fore.

How­ev­er, "It will nev­er to­tal­ly go away."

Ha­jj is the Mus­lim pil­grim­age to Mec­ca, which takes place in the last month of the year and which all Mus­lims are ex­pect­ed to make at least once dur­ing their life­time if they can af­ford to do so. It is one of the Five Pil­lars of Is­lam.

Hav­ing grown close to Kaleem's wife who she now counts as her daugh­ter, Sher­i­ma said, "Kaleem didn't on­ly lose a broth­er, he lost his best friend."

Strug­gling to be her fam­i­ly's rock, Sher­i­ma said, "We have just left every­thing in the hands of Al­lah."

Em­pathis­ing with oth­er fam­i­lies whose loved ones are still miss­ing and to those forced in­to a sim­i­lar po­si­tion like them, Sher­i­ma ad­vised: "Pray and be­lieve, you have to be­lieve and some­thing will hap­pen."