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Monday, July 14, 2025

Komal’s family say he was kidnapped, taken to Venezuela

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344 days ago
20240804
Komal Maharaj

Komal Maharaj

Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Rel­a­tives of Ch­agua­nas con­sul­tant Ko­mal Ma­haraj claimed he was kid­napped, tak­en to Venezuela and on­ly re­leased on Fri­day af­ter­noon af­ter they paid a ran­som. 

They made the claims in a press state­ment yes­ter­day af­ter­noon al­most 24 hours af­ter Ma­haraj was re­unit­ed with them two weeks af­ter he was re­port­ed miss­ing. 

The state­ment sought to in­di­rect­ly dis­pel so­cial me­dia al­le­ga­tions that have been cir­cu­lat­ing since his re­lease that the ab­duc­tion was a hoax. 

Ma­haraj’s fam­i­ly said: “While de­tails of the en­tire or­deal can­not be made pub­lic at this time due to the sen­si­tive na­ture of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, we can con­firm that Ko­mal was held cap­tive in Venezuela.

“Dur­ing that pe­ri­od, Ko­mal was able to com­mu­ni­cate di­rect­ly with mem­bers of his fam­i­ly and his wife, un­der the watch­ful eyes of his cap­tors.”

They said the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) was in­formed about what tran­spired. 

“Un­der the TTPS’s guide­lines, Ko­mal’s re­lease was ne­go­ti­at­ed. An undis­closed sum of mon­ey was paid for his safe re­turn,” the state­ment said. 

Rel­a­tives said Ma­haraj’s ab­duc­tors dropped him off at sea off the south­west­ern coast of Trinidad.

“He swam to shore and found his way to a shop in Chatham, where he con­tact­ed his wife,” they said. 

Ma­haraj was picked up by po­lice of­fi­cers who took him for a med­ical eval­u­a­tion be­fore re­unit­ing him with his rel­a­tives. 

“He con­tin­ues to heal and work with the TTPS on its in­ves­ti­ga­tion,” the fam­i­ly said. 

His rel­a­tives thanked mem­bers of the pub­lic for their prayers and sup­port. 

“Our fam­i­ly con­tin­ues to pray that he heals from the trau­ma that was ex­pe­ri­enced and that life can re­sume with some lev­el of nor­mal­cy,” the re­lease said. 

Ma­haraj, 40, a for­mer teacher from Fe­lic­i­ty, was re­port­ed miss­ing af­ter he went to an ATM in Price Plaza, Ch­agua­nas, around 2 pm on Ju­ly 19. His ve­hi­cle was found un­touched at the lo­ca­tion. 

The Hunters Search and Res­cue Team, led by its com­man­der Sham­sudeen Ayube, was en­list­ed to as­sist in the search for Ma­haraj and Crime Stop­pers T&T of­fered a $10,000 re­ward for in­for­ma­tion on his where­abouts. 

On Fri­day, Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly said he was re­lieved that Ma­haraj was found and called for a thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion. He stressed that it was cru­cial for those re­spon­si­ble to be iden­ti­fied and held ac­count­able to pre­vent such in­ci­dents from oc­cur­ring in the fu­ture.

De­tec­tives of the An­ti Kid­nap­ping Unit (AKU) are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions. 


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