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Thursday, July 24, 2025

Former kidnap victim relives horrific ordeal

by

1632 days ago
20210203
Businessman Clint Arjoon recalls when he was kidnapped in 2002 at his home in Morne Deisy yesterday.

Businessman Clint Arjoon recalls when he was kidnapped in 2002 at his home in Morne Deisy yesterday.

Rishi Ragoonath

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

 

“Pray An­drea, pray!”

Heart­felt words from kid­nap vic­tim Clint Ar­joon who sur­vived a hor­ri­fy­ing kid­nap­ping or­deal 19 years ago.

In an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Ar­joon said the kid­nap­ping of Bharatt brought back the trau­ma of his past.

“I re­al­ly feel it for her. This is some­thing from which you nev­er heal. You can nev­er live as you did be­fore,” Ar­joon said.

Even though it has been four days since she was nabbed, Ar­joon ad­vised the fam­i­ly not to lose hope.

“There are peo­ple who were kid­napped for a week and more and they made it home. We can on­ly hope that she can too,” Ar­joon said.

He al­so urged her fam­i­ly to re­main strong and not di­vulge any in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ed to fi­nance as this could hurt the vic­tim.

“Fi­nan­cial in­for­ma­tion is very im­por­tant and should be with­held. There is al­ways some­one on the in­side who is work­ing along with them. As soon as they tar­get some­one, there is an aim and be­ing able to get fur­ther fi­nan­cial in­for­ma­tion. With­hold­ing cer­tain in­for­ma­tion is nec­es­sary,” Ar­joon urged.

Un­like oth­er kid­nap vic­tims, Ar­joon said he did not have the op­tion of mi­grat­ing abroad be­cause he need­ed to stay in T&T to care for his par­ents.

How­ev­er, he said the trau­ma of a kid­nap­ping or­deal nev­er left him and every­thing in his life changed.

“The things I used to do be­fore the kid­nap­ping, I no longer do. Be­ing able to en­joy the beach­es and rivers. That was some­thing I en­joyed be­fore, but now I can nev­er feel safe in any pub­lic place. Busi­ness­wise, I lost hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars be­cause I stopped go­ing to site vis­its,” Ar­joon said.

Ar­joon al­so called on the po­lice to nip kid­nap­ping in the bud.

“In my ex­pe­ri­ence, you can­not be care­ful enough with every sce­nario that you en­counter dai­ly. I have tried to be safe. I al­ways ob­serve my sur­round­ings. Look for ve­hi­cles fol­low­ing you and try pay at­ten­tion,” he said.

Ar­joon said af­ter he was kid­napped in 2002, a $2 mil­lion ran­som was made for his safe re­turn. He ex­plained that the kid­nap­pers beat him mer­ci­less­ly for two days and had him tied up with duct tape from his head to his chin.

“It was on­ly be­cause of the ex­pan­sive search op­er­a­tions of the po­lice that the lone watch­man who guard­ed me, aban­doned his post.”

Ar­joon said he man­aged to flee the dark apart­ment in Tu­na­puna where he was held cap­tive.

Those mem­o­ries, Ar­joon said, has nev­er left his head and al­most 20 years lat­er, he still re­lives the mo­ments of trau­ma.

To add to his trau­ma, Ar­joon said the kid­nap­pers, who were even­tu­al­ly caught, were placed on a mere $5,000 bail.

“For two days I was held and there was con­stant beat­ing. That is what was very hard to get over. Even af­ter that when I need­ed cer­tain as­sis­tance from the po­lice and I did not get it. Af­ter the kid­nap­ping, the kid­nap­pers ap­proached me twice and there was lit­tle help from the po­lice.”

He said the ran­som was not paid. “They took $30,000 from my cred­it card, my jew­ellery. Mon­ey and valu­ables in to­tal were $60,000. They held me for $2 mil­lion ran­som but they got $5,000 bail,” he added. 

Ar­joon urged An­drea to stand strong de­spite her con­di­tions and he plead­ed with the fam­i­ly and the po­lice not to di­vulge un­nec­es­sary in­for­ma­tion. He al­so called on mem­bers of the pub­lic to re­port any de­tail that may re­late to the kid­nap­ping be­fore it was too late.

Mean­while, mod­er­a­tor of the Pres­by­ter­ian Church of T&T Rev Joy Ab­dul Mo­han said the church was ap­palled by the rapid in­crease in vi­o­lent heinous crimes against cit­i­zens, es­pe­cial­ly women.

“The church can­not em­brace jus­tice, peace and love...if it fails to speak out and act ac­cord­ing­ly to con­demn vi­o­lence against women and men,” she said.

Mo­han said the T&T should nev­er al­low it­self to reach the point where it is de­sen­si­tised to the griev­ous as­saults against hu­man­i­ty.”


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