RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA
rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Pre­cious time is laps­ing in the search for 23-year-old An­drea Bharatt.

But even as the fam­i­ly goes through the most hor­ri­fy­ing or­deal of their lives, the en­tire na­tion is ral­ly­ing around them.

Since her dis­ap­pear­ance four days ago, sev­er­al groups have been mo­bi­liz­ing to bring hope to the fam­i­ly.  Prayer ses­sions, both vir­tu­al and ac­tu­al, are be­ing held across the coun­try.

From 6 am on Tues­day, hunters from var­i­ous groups in Ari­ma, To­co, Ari­ma, Ma­yaro, Man­zanil­la, Pe­nal and Moru­ga con­tin­ued a sec­ond day of search­ing in the San­gre Grande forests, where po­lice be­lieve Bharatt is be­ing held.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, pres­i­dent of the hunt­ing group Hard Grounds Get Soft, Ren Gopiesingh, con­firmed he was deep in the forests search­ing for Bharatt.

He said he spent sev­er­al hours gal­va­niz­ing cit­i­zens in­to ac­tion with the hope of help­ing the po­lice find the 23-year-old.

On a Face­book live video, Gopiesingh said Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith had per­mit­ted them to search the forests.

“I have many friends in Fish­ing Pond. I want you to come and help us search,” he said.

For those who have to work, Gopiesingh ap­pealed to them to take a day off and join in the search.

He urged the search par­ty not to walk with big firearms but in­stead, to walk with GPS track­ing de­vices, head­lights, wa­ter, tall boots and back­packs.

Mean­while, the group Women Help­ing Oth­ers (WHO) al­so joined in, show­ing sup­port to the fam­i­ly.

“WHO is deeply sad­dened by the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing Ms Bharatt’s kid­nap­ping and words can­not ex­press the emo­tion­al pain and trau­ma her loved ones are cur­rent­ly ex­pe­ri­enc­ing,” of­fi­cials said in a state­ment.

The group said it will con­tin­ue to pray for Bharatt’s safe re­lease.  It al­so urged mem­bers of the pub­lic to sup­ply any in­for­ma­tion on her where­abouts to con­tact the near­est po­lice sta­tion.

Sev­er­al Face­book groups al­so used so­cial me­dia to ap­peal to the pub­lic to help through ac­tive search­ing, vig­i­lance and prayers.

The group “Look The Ban­dit T&T” wrote: “Come on peo­ple... Some­one must have seen some­thing.”

Alert T&T al­so high­light­ed the use of emer­gency no­ti­fi­ca­tion ap­pli­ca­tions on cell­phones, which were car­ried in an ex­clu­sive Guardian sto­ry.

Most cell­phones come equipped with “Emer­gency SOS” fea­tures that can be quick­ly ac­ti­vat­ed to con­tact ei­ther an emer­gency con­tact or the po­lice if you are in a dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion.

The Pres­by­ter­ian Church al­so joined in a vir­tu­al prayer ses­sion on Mon­day night.

Youth mem­ber and Sen­a­tor, Jayan­ti Lutch­miedi­al, called on the na­tion to lift An­drea Bharatt in prayer.

“We keep her fam­i­ly and friends in our thoughts; we ask God to bring them com­fort. No one can imag­ine what they are feel­ing at these dread­ful mo­ments.  As par­ents, sib­lings, cousins… we can all on­ly imag­ine the pain of not know­ing where a loved one is and how gut-wrench­ing that must feel,” Lutch­miedi­al said.

She not­ed that gen­der-based vi­o­lence is a prob­lem that is plagu­ing T&T.

“For a small coun­try, we ex­pe­ri­ence far too many in­stances of peo­ple be­ing abused, harmed in dif­fer­ent ways and even mur­dered.  The scourge of GBV is caus­ing hurt and pain and de­struc­tion in the lives of peo­ple like young An­drea.  Women, as we all know, are dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly af­fect­ed by GBV, but our men and boys are al­so vic­tims of vi­o­lence.  We must not for­get them,” she added.

Lutch­miedi­al al­so called on cit­i­zens to look out for one an­oth­er.

“We al­so have to tell our broth­ers, un­cles, cousins and friends that heck­ling a woman on the street is not okay.  Ha­rass­ing a woman who has end­ed a re­la­tion­ship is not okay.  Forc­ing a woman you work with to talk to you, and be­ing ag­gres­sive to­wards her if she doesn’t show in­ter­est, isn’t ma­cho... it’s wrong.  Phys­i­cal­ly abus­ing a woman who angers you is not the way to cope with con­flict,” she added.

Any­one with in­for­ma­tion on An­drea Bharatt’s where­abouts can con­tact CrimeStop­pers at 800-TIPS, the Po­lice Ser­vice hot­line at 555, as well as text or What­sApp 482-GARY.