RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro is urg­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic to come for­ward with in­for­ma­tion on a San Fran­cique woman and her son, who are ac­cused of false­ly im­pris­on­ing Sabi­ta Bas­deo af­ter of­fer­ing her a job as a maid.

Gue­var­ro, who has es­tab­lished a team to probe the dis­turb­ing al­le­ga­tions, told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that pub­lic as­sis­tance is crit­i­cal.

“I can re­as­sure you that a thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion is be­ing con­duct­ed, but if any­one has di­rect in­for­ma­tion or is aware of ad­di­tion­al vic­tims, I urge them to come for­ward,” the Com­mis­sion­er said.

Vice-pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Red Cross So­ci­ety, Ed­ward Mood­ie, said po­lice re­turned on Mon­day night to a chick­en farm in Pe­nal—one of three lo­ca­tions al­leged­ly used by the sus­pects.

How­ev­er, he urged the pub­lic not to re­trau­ma­tise Bas­deo by ques­tion­ing her about her or­deal.

“The po­lice al­so took Sabi­ta’s son back to the sta­tion to give an­oth­er state­ment. Right now, this en­tire fam­i­ly is trau­ma­tised and afraid. They need help, and I want them to be placed in pro­tec­tive cus­tody,” Mood­ie said.

He added that So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Van­dana Mo­hit has been li­ais­ing with rel­a­tives, while the Vic­tim and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit is al­so as­sist­ing.

When con­tact­ed for com­ment, Mo­hit con­firmed that the mat­ter is re­ceiv­ing the min­istry’s at­ten­tion.

“The min­istry is ac­tive­ly work­ing on this mat­ter through var­i­ous units. We are al­so work­ing with the TTPS, which is a key stake­hold­er,” she said.

How­ev­er, a rel­a­tive of Bas­deo, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, al­leged that Bas­deo was not the on­ly vic­tim, claim­ing the ac­cused and her son were in­volved in oth­er sce­nar­ios for years.

The rel­a­tive al­leged that Bas­deo was se­vere­ly beat­en last year and left un­con­scious along Quinam Beach Road. When she re­gained con­scious­ness, the ac­cused al­leged­ly re­turned for her and con­tin­ued to keep her con­fined.

An­oth­er source, who al­so re­quest­ed anonymi­ty due to safe­ty con­cerns, said Bas­deo’s hus­band, Kr­ishen­deo, and their two sons even held a wake for Bas­deo at their Bar­rack­pore home be­cause they be­lieved she had died. T

hey lat­er learned she re­gained con­scious­ness and was tak­en back to the sus­pect’s home. The rel­a­tive said when they at­tempt­ed to vis­it, a brick was thrown at their ve­hi­cle, shat­ter­ing the wind­screen.

The source fur­ther claimed the sus­pect of­ten in­tim­i­dat­ed work­ers. In a video cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia, a work­er ap­pears to be tied up and beat­en with a cut­lass by a teenag­er.

TTPS cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Joanne Archie con­firmed that the woman and her son re­main in cus­tody with­out charges.

Any­one with in­for­ma­tion is asked to con­tact Crime Stop­pers at 800-TIPS.