SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI and

MARK BAS­SANT

Al­most 72 hours af­ter 23-year-old An­drea Bharatt was kid­napped, of­fi­cers of the An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Squad (AKS) and the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT) are yet to find her.

Four men were de­tained by of­fi­cers at­tached to SORT and the AKS for ques­tion­ing in­to the kid­nap­ping of An­drea.

The man­hunt, spear­head­ed by Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith, led SORT of­fi­cers un­der In­spec­tor Mark Her­nan­dez and the AKS to two sep­a­rate homes in East Trinidad.

Se­nior sources said one man was held at a home in Pe­tit Bourg, while three men were lat­er held at an­oth­er home in Mal­abar.

“Per­son­al be­long­ings of the young la­dy were re­cov­ered at both homes,” said a se­nior po­lice source, speak­ing on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty.

How­ev­er, the source said there was no sign of An­drea and they were still pur­su­ing “cer­tain clues.”

“The in­ves­ti­ga­tion is still at a very ear­ly stage, but we are hop­ing for the best out­come,” the source told Guardian Me­dia.

The men ages 20-30 were held just af­ter 11 am fol­low­ing in­for­ma­tion re­ceived by po­lice.

Guardian Me­dia was told the sus­pects have been un­co­op­er­a­tive with po­lice.

The po­lice al­so vis­it­ed a hous­ing set­tle­ment near North East­ern Col­lege in San­gre Grande in search of An­drea up to late yes­ter­day but came up emp­ty-hand­ed.

The news of the ar­rests brought a ray of hope for An­drea’s fa­ther Ran­dolph Bharatt.

An­drea, 23, a clerk at the Ari­ma Mag­is­trate’s Court en­tered a taxi in King Street Ari­ma with a fel­low em­ploy­ee on Fri­day.

SORT officers go into a forested area in Sangre Grande during their search for kidnap victim Andrea Bharatt yesterday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

A few min­utes lat­er Bharatt’s friend was dropped off in Cleaver Heights, Ari­ma.

An­drea nev­er made it home.

A man who an­swered An­drea’s cell­phone hours af­ter her dis­ap­pear­ance told Bharatt he want­ed mon­ey for her daugh­ter’s safe re­turn.

Fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent, in­ves­ti­ga­tors were able to se­cure CCTV footage of the car in the Cleaver Heights area in an at­tempt to iden­ti­fy the dri­ver de­scribed as an African male, dark com­plex­ion and slim built with a sec­ond male oc­cu­pant al­so in the car who was al­so of African de­scent, dark com­plex­ion and medi­um built.

Speak­ing at his Ari­ma Old Road, Ari­ma home yes­ter­day, her fa­ther Ran­dolph Bharatt said he was still in dis­be­lief as to what had hap­pened.

Un­able to sleep and eat, Bharatt said he is hop­ing for the best.

He said when he did not see An­drea come home from work by 4.30 he got wor­ried and an un­easy feel­ing gripped him.

As the min­utes turned in­to hours, Bharatt said he knew some­thing was not right.

“When I checked the time I sat down for two hours do­ing noth­ing...just wait­ing. I re­alised some­thing wrong.”

Bharatt called his daugh­ter’s phone but got no re­sponse.

With­in min­utes he di­alled again.

“And that is where the dra­ma start­ed,” an emo­tion­al Bharatt said.

A man an­swered the phone around 7.24 pm.

Randolph Bharatt speaks about his kidnapped daughter during an interview at his home yesterday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

“I does talk rough...every­body does tell me I does talk rough. Not every­body does un­der­stand me but I doh mean noth­ing by it. That is how I is. I asked the guy what you do­ing with my daugh­ter’s phone and that man start­ed to car­ry on and he used some ob­scene (lan­guage),” Bharatt re­called.

Bhar­rat said his con­ver­sa­tion with the man last­ed a few sec­onds.

He said the man told him “you is not a killer. You don’t know who you are deal­ing with. I get fright­en and I hang up the phone.”

Bharatt said sev­en min­utes lat­er he called his daugh­ter’s phone again.

“When the guy an­swered he said he want mon­ey. He say you don’t know who you talk­ing to. You is not a bad­dist...you is not a killer.”

Bharatt said the kid­nap­per did not like how he spoke to him, promis­ing to send “a piece of my daugh­ter’s ear to me.”

Again, Bharatt hung up the phone.

That was the last time he spoke to daugh­ter’s kid­nap­pers.

“I ain’t get no call and I ain’t hear noth­ing again.”

Bharatt said he re­tired as an au­to elec­tri­cian and be­gan fix­ing house­hold ap­pli­ances which main­tains him.

He said he is not a rich per­son.

He said dri­vers who ply dif­fer­ent routes would pull up on the Ari­ma Old Road taxi stand and run a few trips over a few days and dis­ap­pear.

“It was one of those taxis my daugh­ter took.”

Fresh tears flowed from his eyes when asked to de­scribe his daugh­ter.

“An­drea is the most qui­etest egg you could find. No com­plaint, no quar­rel, no noth­ing. She is a gem of a girl.”

He said he can­not say who might be in­volved in the kid­nap­ping.

He shud­ders to think what his daugh­ter has gone through and con­tin­ues to face while be­ing cap­tive.

Andrea Bharatt

“That girl is an egg. I don’t know what to say.”

He plead­ed with the kid­nap­per “do not harm my daugh­ter. Please re­lease her. Let her come home safe. I beg­ging...She is the on­ly thing in my life.”

Bharatt’s said wife Sandy suc­cumbed to a rare skin dis­or­der in 2012.

An­drea al­so suf­fers from a skin dis­or­der just like her mom.

“My daugh­ter is a sick­ly child...she has a bad skin con­di­tion. She can­not eat every­thing. She can­not drink milk. Noth­ing don’t agree with her skin. She has a skin dis­ease.”

For years, Bharatt said An­drea has been vis­it­ing der­ma­tol­o­gists but noth­ing has been work­ing.

“For the past 13 years she has been sick. All my mon­ey is in doc­tor bills.”

He said he spent $250,000 by var­i­ous skin spe­cial­ists lo­cal­ly and abroad to save his wife’s life but she did not last.

“The doc­tors sucked me dry. Not a cent saved.”

See­ing af­ter An­drea’s health, Bharatt said is like re­liv­ing this night­mare all over again.

“It is not cheap to go by doc­tors...spe­cial­ists. Every time you go is $800 twice for the month. The spe­cial­ists in this coun­try don’t know what to do. Is on­ly blood test af­ter blood test and noth­ing. They have no cure for she dis­ease. Is on­ly God I de­pend­ing on to cure that child. All yuh please send my child home,” Bharatt said burst­ing in­to tears.

Bharatt said An­drea needs med­ica­tion to help con­trol her skin con­di­tion.

He show­ered prais­es to the po­lice for go­ing all in their search.

“The po­lice do­ing their work­ing. They have things which they are not re­veal­ing. But I good with that. They do­ing things.”

Clutch­ing her chest, Sal­ly Sooman said the on­ly word to de­scribe An­drea was “an­gel­ic. She is tru­ly an an­gel.”

SORT officers during their search for kidnap victim Andrea Bharatt in Sange Grande yesterday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

Sooman, An­drea’s cousin said some Old Road taxi dri­vers have been as­sist­ing the po­lice with in­for­ma­tion and giv­ing the fam­i­ly words of en­cour­age­ment and sup­port.

“The dri­vers print­ed fly­ers of An­drea’s dis­ap­pear­ance which they stuck up in Ari­ma hop­ing that some­one would come for­ward and say some­thing. We are keep­ing our fin­gers crossed.”