An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

A St Au­gus­tine fam­i­ly’s worst night­mare be­came a re­al­i­ty yes­ter­day, af­ter their teenage son was kid­napped.

Po­lice said Za­heer Samuel, 14, of Rapsey Street, Curepe, was grabbed by armed men at 5.30 am as he was help­ing par­ents Shar­da Ali and William Samuel open their busi­ness—the S&S Plant and Gar­den Shop, East­ern Main Road, St Au­gus­tine—as he was ac­cus­tomed to do­ing dai­ly.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the Form Four stu­dent of St George’s Col­lege, Barataria, was un­load­ing his fa­ther’s truck and lay­ing out the plants and flow­er­pots at the front of the store when a heav­i­ly tint­ed brown wag­on stopped and two armed men ex­it­ed and forced him in­to the back­seat.

Samuel’s moth­er was forced to watch help­less­ly as the men ran back to the car.

Spring­ing in­to ac­tion sec­onds lat­er, she alert­ed her hus­band and a work­er, who ran out from the shop next door and at­tempt­ed to stop the as­sailants.

William re­called not know­ing his son had been in the car that turned on­to Evans Street, Curepe, and as his wife alert­ed him to what hap­pened, he threw a ce­ram­ic plant pot at the as­sailants as they were prepar­ing to flee.

The fa­ther said he then jumped in­to his white Hilux and sped off in the same di­rec­tion look­ing for the get­away ve­hi­cle.

“I didn’t see any sign of them.”

The fa­ther wept as he begged the kid­nap­pers to re­lease his son un­harmed.

“I ap­peal­ing to who­ev­er take my son to bring him back. We have no mon­ey, we have noth­ing. Is a hus­tle out­side here every day.”

Be­wil­dered as to why the fam­i­ly was tar­get­ed, William said they were not wealthy and strug­gle to eke out a liv­ing dai­ly.

“We don’t do no­body noth­ing. We give lil char­i­ty. We help plen­ty peo­ple ... so I don’t know why you take my son,” William cried.

Za­heer is due to cel­e­brate his 15th birth­day on De­cem­ber 30.

“Why you must take a lil 15-year-old? This month he go be 15. What he do alyuh? He ain’t do alyuh noth­ing, that you could come just so and raff my son this morn­ing ... and what hurt me, I right here and doh know what go­ing on. It was so qui­et.”

William said his son was a bright boy who was loved by all.

He said with his birth­day ap­proach­ing, “whole week Za­heer and he sis­ter ha­rass­ing the moth­er.”

“They had planned to board her to­day,” he added.

This lat­est kid­nap­ping comes four days af­ter Val­sayn res­i­dent Za­hir Khan was kid­napped by armed men, as he stood in the front yard of his home at Bam­boo Set­tle­ment #1, Val­sayn, on Sat­ur­day.

Khan, 69, the fa­ther of a busi­ness­man, was res­cued by po­lice at an aban­doned house at Sec­ond Cale­do­nia, Mor­vant, on Tues­day.

Po­lice said the car which Za­heer was bun­dled in­to was found aban­doned in Va­len­cia, ap­prox­i­mate­ly eight hours af­ter the kid­nap­ping.

William con­tin­ued to weep as he shook his head, “It hard, it hard.”

As word of the kid­nap­ping spread yes­ter­day, res­i­dents of Curepe and en­vi­rons, as well as long­time cus­tomers, con­tin­ued to stop and of­fer hugs, hand­shakes and words of so­lace and prayer to fam­i­ly mem­bers who re­mained at the scene.

William said two years ago, armed men robbed his wife at gun­point as she opened the shop. He said her life was spared af­ter the ban­dit’s gun jammed.

MP con­demns in­ci­dent

Mean­while, ex­press­ing deep con­cern and con­dem­na­tion over the kid­nap­ping, St Au­gus­tine MP Khadi­jah Ameen said, “The brazen kid­nap­ping of a child from his fam­i­ly busi­ness not on­ly strikes fear in­to the hearts of every cit­i­zen but al­so high­lights the ur­gent need for a com­pre­hen­sive strat­e­gy to com­bat the in­creas­ing wave of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty in our com­mu­ni­ties.”

Urg­ing the au­thor­i­ties to ex­pe­dite ef­forts to lo­cate Za­heer and bring the per­pe­tra­tors to jus­tice, she added, “The safe­ty of our chil­dren and fam­i­lies must be a top pri­or­i­ty. This lev­el of brazen­ness can­not be­come nor­malised.”