Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Al­most a week since his dis­ap­pear­ance, rel­a­tives of PH dri­ver Si­mon Bhag­wath are pray­ing that he has not been harmed and will re­turn home safe­ly.

At their White­land home yes­ter­day, his par­ents Per­cy Bhag­wath and Ju­liana Lal-Bhag­wath made an­oth­er des­per­ate ap­peal to the pub­lic for help.

As tears rolled down her cheeks, Lal-Bhag­wath, a moth­er of three, lament­ed, “I’m ap­peal­ing to any­body who knows any­thing or see the ve­hi­cle or have any idea where he is to please call the po­lice sta­tion or in­form those in au­thor­i­ty or even call home and let us know. I want my child home. I want my child home with me where he be­longs. I don’t want any­thing to hap­pen to him, and I pray that God will bring him home safe­ly.”

Bhag­wath, 36, re­port­ed to po­lice on May 17 that he had paid mon­ey to peo­ple pre­vi­ous­ly to as­sist his girl­friend, who is a Venezue­lan na­tion­al, but they de­mand­ed a fur­ther $1,800 and had threat­ened to car­ry him for a “truck ride” and as­sault him if he failed to pay the mon­ey.

Last Wednes­day, he re­turned to the Gas­par­il­lo Po­lice Sta­tion where he gave a fur­ther state­ment. Bhag­wath’s moth­er said on that same day, she had mes­saged him af­ter 11 am, and he replied that he was still at the sta­tion.

Rel­a­tives be­lieve that af­ter leav­ing the sta­tion, he went out to work, but calls to his cell­phone have since gone unan­swered, and his white AD wag­on re­mains miss­ing.

His moth­er be­lieves his kind and help­ful na­ture may have led to him fac­ing this sit­u­a­tion.

While they have been con­tact­ed by the An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Unit, she said as far as they know, the po­lice have no leads on her son’s where­abouts.

“We don’t know ex­act­ly what is go­ing on. We are just wait­ing and pray­ing and hop­ing that they find him and he can come home. Our biggest hope is that they don’t do him any harm.”

She said her son is a car­ing per­son.

“Every­one who has known him for all these years knows the type of per­son that he has been. Al­ways a gen­uine, car­ing per­son, al­ways will­ing to help. It doesn’t mat­ter if it is the last dime he has; he will help. I be­lieve that is what get him in this sit­u­a­tion, help­ing peo­ple.”

Mean­while, Hunters Search and Res­cue Team cap­tain Val­lence Ramb­harat said they have been con­duct­ing search­es and work­ing close­ly with the law en­force­ment agen­cies but so far, they have had no sub­stan­tial leads.

Any­one with in­for­ma­tion on his where­abouts is be­ing urged to con­tact the Gas­par­il­lo Po­lice Sta­tion, 999 or 800-TIPS.