Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

Po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing whether kid­napped eight-year-old Jes­si­ca Fran­cois was tak­en and re­leased by a man who was up­set be­cause a rel­a­tive of the young girl re­fused to share a re­la­tion­ship with him.

The man, po­lice said, was "blanked" last week and told not to re­turn to the fam­i­ly's home in Cen­tral Trinidad. The rel­a­tive, po­lice said, was now mov­ing out of her house in fear of her life. Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, around 4 pm on Wednes­day, Fran­cois was play­ing with two class­mates on the com­pound of Raghu­nanan Road Gov­ern­ment School dur­ing the school's Open Day.

The class­mates, po­lice said, left Fran­cois and went to the wash­rooms. Fran­cois, the re­port stat­ed, re­mained in the court­yard play­ing by her­self when sud­den­ly two men, one on a bi­cy­cle and the oth­er on foot, came in­to the school. One of the men, po­lice said, placed a gun to the mouth of the child and pushed her in­to a wait­ing car and sped off.

The child's rel­a­tive, who is al­so em­ployed at the school did not miss Fran­cois un­til she was ready to leave the com­pound. An alarm was raised and a re­port was made at the Cunu­pia Po­lice Sta­tion. Fran­cois, po­lice said, was lat­er re­leased at Crowne Street, En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas. In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.