JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

A po­lice of­fi­cer last as­signed to the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion is among three peo­ple held in re­la­tion to the kid­nap­ping and mur­der of live­stock farmer Vish­nu Lal­la.

The of­fi­cer, who failed to show up to work in the last two weeks af­ter be­ing trans­ferred to the Long­denville Po­lice Post, was held on Sun­day along with an­oth­er man. A third sus­pect was held yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Lal­la was killed de­spite rel­a­tives pay­ing $50,000, which was half of the $100,000 ran­som de­mand­ed for his safe re­lease.

Lal­la, 63, was found with a bul­let wound to the head and his hands tied be­hind his back with a white piece of cloth around 9.30 pm on Sun­day night. Po­lice re­port­ed that around 8 pm, In­sp Phillip, along with Cor­po­rals George and Mor­ris, as­signed to the An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Unit, went to a forest­ed area in search of Lal­la af­ter re­ceiv­ing crit­i­cal in­for­ma­tion.

Af­ter car­ry­ing out a search in the area for over an hour, Lal­la’s body was found face down, one mile in­to a forest­ed area off Brechin Cas­tle Road, Rivulet Road, Cou­va, around 9.30 pm. A sin­gle 9mm spent shell with the mark­ings Blaz­er 380 Au­to was found close to the farmer’s body. Lal­la is the broth­er of Kr­ish­na Lal­la, own­er of Su­per In­dus­tri­al Ser­vices.

Lal­la was found dead less than 24 hours af­ter he was kid­napped.

Po­lice said around 6.50 pm on Sat­ur­day, they re­ceived a re­port that Lal­la, of Dairy Lane, Wind­sor Park, Cal­i­for­nia, was tend­ing to his an­i­mals when they sus­pect he was kid­napped.

His grey Toy­ota Hilux van was seen speed­ing away from his home. When his wife went to check on Lal­la, he was nowhere to be found. She lat­er re­ceived a call from his cell­phone with a man on the oth­er end de­mand­ing a $100,000 ran­som be paid for Lal­la’s safe re­lease.

Hours lat­er, his grey Toy­ota Hilux was aban­doned and torched at George Street, Es­per­an­za, Cal­i­for­nia.

Yes­ter­day, Lal­la’s rel­a­tives were too dis­traught to speak. His neigh­bours on Dairy Road, where he lived, said they were left shak­en.

Res­i­dent An­dre La Mothe said that al­though he did not have a per­son­al re­la­tion­ship with Lal­la, his death im­pact­ed the en­tire serene farm­ing vil­lage.

“I don’t know the gen­tle­man per­son­al­ly, but he’s from the vil­lage, and it’s a sad thing to know that some­thing so close to here could hap­pen so eas­i­ly. And like I say, it’s a tragedy for the vil­lage, the fam­i­ly mem­bers, and every­one else.”

He said that while Lal­la’s mur­der had sad­dened the com­mu­ni­ty, it would not damp­en the uni­ty in the farm­ing vil­lage.

“The com­mu­ni­ty down here it’s knit­ted, very close. We have sports, cul­ture, every­thing you could think about. Eth­nic group, mul­ti­cul­tur­al, mul­tira­cial, every­thing, we have it. And it’s a one­ness we have in this com­mu­ni­ty here. We got no ha­tred, no mal­ice, no vi­o­lence.”

La Mothe added that blam­ing the Gov­ern­ment will not ad­dress crime, but be­lieves that the au­thor­i­ties should do all they can to make peo­ple feel safe, even lit­tle things like en­sur­ing the street lights work.

“No crime should go un­no­ticed. For­get gov­ern­ment past and gov­ern­ment in pow­er; they have noth­ing to do with it. Crime is a big is­sue, and I think the peo­ple in the right po­si­tion are sup­posed to deal with it ac­cord­ing­ly. I mean, a lot of things could be done ac­cord­ing to who­ev­er it is, the gov­ern­ment, who­ev­er it is. They could do things. I mean, it’s some­thing that hap­pened al­ready, and like I say, it shouldn’t hap­pen, but you nev­er know.”

He joked that on­ly the poor seemed to es­cape crim­i­nals, and luck­i­ly, he con­sid­ered him­self poor.

Two women, who chose not to iden­ti­fy them­selves, said Lal­la’s killing placed a dark cloud over the com­mu­ni­ty.

“The vil­lage come like, it come it in dark­ness. We get up this morn­ing with a heav­i­ness,” she said, adding that she was doubt­ful the com­mu­ni­ty could heal from the killing be­cause Lal­la did no one wrong.

She added that both Lal­la and his wife were hard work­ers and were al­ways good to the com­mu­ni­ty.

“He used to come and kill hog by the cor­ner and talk and laugh with every­body. He was nice, very, very nice. Come like a fam­i­ly to all ah we too.”

The sec­ond woman, who was un­able to say much as she broke down in tears, re­called the good re­la­tion­ship Lal­la had with al­most every­one in the com­mu­ni­ty.

“I know him and he’s a good per­son. He was a hard work­er; I don’t re­al­ly know much about his per­son­al life.”

Mean­while, se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers said they were dis­ap­point­ed to learn that one of their own had been held in con­nec­tion with Lal­la’s kid­nap­ping and mur­der. How­ev­er, the Pres­i­dent of the Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion, ASP Ish­mael Pitt, said he had no com­ment on the of­fi­cer’s ar­rest.

So far this year, there have been sev­er­al kid­nap­ping-for-ran­som cas­es.

In Ju­ly, Jankie Satie Karim was kid­napped. She was res­cued by the po­lice. Al­so in Ju­ly, friends Ryan Singh and Ka­reem Latch­man were kid­napped but es­caped their ab­duc­tors.

In Sep­tem­ber, Caribbean Air­lines pi­lot Daniel Kawall was kid­napped and res­cued by po­lice.

Cops charged for kid­nap­ping/mur­der

In May2025, Naboth By­noe of the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion was charged with kid­nap­ping, lar­ce­ny, and two counts of de­mand­ing mon­ey by men­ace

Oc­to­ber 13, 2024, Act­ing Cor­po­ral Ashraf Mo­hammed and PC Ja­son Dan Michael ap­peared in court charged with the mur­der of used car deal­er, Sachel “Pablo” Kunge­be­har­ry, and kid­nap­ping for ran­som

April 24, 2024, Of­fi­cer Josi­ah Di­az of the Port-of-Spain City Po­lice charged with the mur­der of Ronal­do Ce­de­no

De­cem­ber 2023, PC Sid­ney Roberts charged with the mur­ders of sib­lings Sime­on and Sini­aya Lessey