It was not what the fa­ther of An­drea Bharatt and the coun­try were hop­ing for.

Every­one want­ed an­swers on what led to the death of the 23-year-old clerk. But the au­top­sy done on the young woman’s body yes­ter­day was in­con­clu­sive, pro­vid­ing no an­swers on An­drea’s fi­nal mo­ments.

Across the coun­try, there has been a lob­by for jus­tice for An­drea - her death com­ing as it did just bare­ly a month af­ter the mur­der of Ashan­ti Ri­ley. No one knows for sure what would have hap­pened in her fi­nal mo­ments. The on­ly hope was the au­top­sy.

Cou­pled with that, yes­ter­day came word that a key sus­pect in her kid­nap­ping had died.

Po­lice said the sus­pect, Joel Bal­con, died at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex. Nurs­es found him un­re­spon­sive and an at­tempt to re­sus­ci­tate him proved fu­tile.

While some see it as po­et­ic jus­tice, the fact is that the coun­try and An­drea’s rel­a­tives must have “pa­tience,” ac­cord­ing to the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er to see what this sec­ond death means for this case.

It would be a trav­es­ty of jus­tice if it falls apart and An­drea’s rel­a­tives get no an­swers on what hap­pened.

It can­not be enough to know that her life­less body was found over a cliff in the Heights of Aripo.

Her life meant much more. Her fam­i­ly needs clo­sure. They need jus­tice as do the many fam­i­lies whose loved ones dis­ap­peared and can­not be found, or whose bones may have been found in the Heights of Aripo fol­low­ing the dis­cov­ery of An­drea’s body.

The coun­try has ral­lied in a uni­fy­ing call for jus­tice for women who have been vic­tims of crime this past week.

An­drea’s death meant some­thing to every­one.

It was a wake-up call to ac­tion.

Cit­i­zens across the length and breadth of this coun­try lit can­dles in vig­ils de­mand­ing jus­tice and an end to crimes against women.

Sad­ly, politi­cians on both sides con­tin­ue to mis­read the mood of the pop­u­la­tion and be­have as though all is well in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

For the record, it is not.

Last week At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi at­tempt­ed to play pol­i­tics with the mat­ter in the Par­lia­ment de­clar­ing “you see Madame speak­er it is all well and good to pick up a can­dle and hold a vig­il.”

He dis­missed the tears of moth­ers and oth­ers who joined the protests as “croc­o­dile tears on a pave­ment” say­ing it does noth­ing to help.

While his com­ments may have been tar­get­ed at the Op­po­si­tion the fact is they touched every­one who par­tic­i­pat­ed in those vig­ils. Hu­man lives mat­ter and the peo­ple are de­mand­ing that the politi­cians elect­ed by them do what is re­quired to pro­tect all of us.

It is all that the peo­ple have.

The on­ly way they know to get those who they elect­ed to do their busi­ness.

It is ex­act­ly be­cause the politi­cians don’t get it that some name­less in­di­vid­ual could pub­lish a sex of­fend­ers reg­istry un­der the ban­ner 'My Tri­ni Ex­pe­ri­ence'. Why is there no pub­lic sex reg­istry?

The AG, Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, the Prime Min­is­ter, and the en­tire Cab­i­net must un­der­stand that Trinidad and To­ba­go have had enough of the crime.

It is time that they get se­ri­ous about fix­ing the prob­lems which plague the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. Those elect­ed by the peo­ple must stop play­ing pol­i­tics with every­thing.

No, Mr AG, it is not croc­o­dile tears.

To quote the rel­a­tives of An­drea, “The na­tion is hurt and cry­ing, and you see it as croc­o­dile tears. Is it our pain you're mak­ing a mock­ery of?”

Come on AG, you can do bet­ter than that.