Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

The moth­er of Sachel Kunge­be­har­ry, who was al­leged­ly kid­napped by po­lice of­fi­cers and lat­er found mur­dered, re­mains hope­ful that the po­lice will bring her jus­tice.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at her Jern­ing­ham Road, Cunu­pia home yes­ter­day, Lyn­cia Han­sranah said the al­leged in­volve­ment of po­lice of­fi­cers in her son’s death will not shat­ter her dreams of get­ting jus­tice.

“Well yes, it wouldn’t be that all the po­lice are cor­rupt. We know that it has the good ones there that would be in­volved in get­ting jus­tice for Sachel,” she said when asked if she still had faith in the po­lice.

Last week, a po­lice cor­po­ral, con­sta­ble and an­oth­er man were held in re­la­tion to the kid­nap­ping and death of Kunge­be­har­ry. On Sun­day, an at­tor­ney rep­re­sent­ing one of the two of­fi­cers sought to com­pel the po­lice to re­lease his client. Up to press time, how­ev­er, the of­fi­cers re­mained in po­lice cus­tody and were sched­uled to be placed on an iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pa­rade.

Kunge­be­har­ry, a 32-year-old busi­ness­man of Pierre Road, Fe­lic­i­ty, was snatched on Sep­tem­ber 25. Three men, dressed in po­lice op­er­a­tional wear, re­port­ed­ly came out of a marked po­lice car, which was lat­er traced to the Ca­roni Po­lice Sta­tion, and took him. A $500,000 ran­som was re­port­ed­ly paid four days lat­er for his safe re­lease. How­ev­er, his de­com­pos­ing body was found on Thurs­day (Oc­to­ber 3) in a shal­low grave off Pokhor Road, Long­denville, Ch­agua­nas.

Yes­ter­day, his moth­er Han­sranah said she has faith in God and knows she will get jus­tice “be­cause I am stand­ing strong in the Lord. He will make that hap­pen.”

She called on fam­i­lies who have been placed in the same predica­ment to join her in prayer so they too can get some jus­tice or at least get clo­sure by hav­ing their loved one’s body re­turned.

The 59-year-old said her fam­i­ly, con­sist­ing of nine chil­dren and her moth­er, were all busi­ness-mind­ed and will not be wa­vered by Kunge­be­har­ry’s killing.

Last Thurs­day, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher, in a me­dia re­lease, promised to rid the po­lice ser­vice of cor­rupt po­lice of­fi­cers in the wake of al­le­ga­tions of the in­volve­ment of of­fi­cers in this lat­est crim­i­nal act.

Asked if this brought any ease to her, Han­sranah said yes.

Re­call­ing the CCTV footage show­ing the marked po­lice car used in the kid­nap­ping of her last of four sons, Han­sranah said see­ing that up­set her.

“What was go­ing through my mind was the cops is the ones that had him, they are the ones that took him. So, what was go­ing through my mind is, is it that I’m go­ing to get jus­tice? Be­cause it’s the cops.”

Han­sranah called on the po­lice com­mis­sion­er to do as promised and rid the po­lice ser­vice of rogue of­fi­cers.

“I would like to send out a mes­sage to them to get all of them that they think is cor­rupt and the el­e­ments that is out there too, not just po­lice of­fi­cers but those in that kin­da thing. I will like the el­e­ments to deal with them in the right way, yuh know, by law,” she said.