JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Kid­nap­pings for ran­som have dou­bled this year when com­pared to the same pe­ri­od last year, ac­cord­ing to T&T Po­lice Ser­vice sta­tis­tics.

Da­ta on the TTPS web­site showed there were six re­port­ed cas­es be­tween Jan­u­ary and Oc­to­ber this year and for the same pe­ri­od last year, there were three.

Kid­nap­pings, how­ev­er, have re­duced, as there were 124 last year and 75 up to the end of Oc­to­ber.

The in­for­ma­tion came as a 14-year-old boy was snatched yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Po­lice said Za­heer Samuel was with his par­ents when he was grabbed by two men from out­side his fam­i­ly’s busi­ness place, SS Plant and Gar­den Shop, East­ern Main Road, St Au­gus­tine. Up to press time, po­lice said no ran­som de­mand was made.

His kid­nap­ping hap­pened two days af­ter kid­nap vic­tim Za­hir Khan was res­cued.

Khan, 69, the fa­ther of a busi­ness­man, was res­cued from a house at Small Street, Sec­ond Cale­do­nia, Mor­vant. He was snatched on Sat­ur­day while in the yard of his Bam­boo Set­tle­ment Num­ber 1, Val­sayn home.

Based on po­lice in­for­ma­tion and me­dia cov­er­age, there have been sev­er­al high-pro­file kid­nap­pings this year, some for ran­som. They in­clud­ed Su­vesh “Cook­sie” Ram­nar­ine, who was ab­duct­ed from Robs Bar in Cunu­pia by five men dressed as po­lice in Oc­to­ber. He was re­leased a month lat­er af­ter a $3 mil­lion ran­som was de­mand­ed.

On Ju­ly 19, Ko­mal Ma­haraj, a 40-year-old for­mer school­teacher, was kid­napped out­side a bank in Price Plaza, Ch­agua­nas. He was found on Au­gust 2.

In Sep­tem­ber, Pierre Road, Fe­lic­i­ty busi­ness­man Sachel Kunge­be­har­ry, 32, was al­leged­ly kid­napped by two po­lice of­fi­cers and a $500,000 ran­som was or­dered. On Oc­to­ber 3, his de­com­pos­ing body was found in a shal­low grave off Pokhor Road, Long­denville. Two po­lice of­fi­cers who were as­signed to the Ca­roni Po­lice Sta­tion were joint­ly charged with Kunge­be­har­ry’s mur­der and mis­be­hav­ing in pub­lic of­fice by kid­nap­ping for ran­som.

Ef­forts to get a com­ment from the TTPS proved fu­tile yes­ter­day.