Sascha Wil­son

As the flames of their can­dles shone dur­ing a vig­il for An­drea Bharatt on Sun­day, the fam­i­ly of Ria Sookdeo is hop­ing that re­cent calls for ac­tion to pro­tect women will reignite in­ter­est in her ab­duc­tion. Sookdeo’s fam­i­ly has been pray­ing for al­most five years that she would be found.

Since her kid­nap­ping on Sep­tem­ber 16, 2016, her fam­i­ly still has no idea where she was tak­en or why. Sookdeo, a moth­er of two, was kid­napped af­ter she dropped her chil­dren to school at Pic­ton Pres­by­ter­ian school. The vig­il at Palmiste Park, San Fer­nan­do, was one of sev­er­al be­ing held in com­mu­ni­ties na­tion­wide since Bharatt’s body was found last Thurs­day.

Her mur­der has re­newed calls for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the death penal­ty, le­gal­iza­tion of pep­per spray, no bail for sex­u­al crimes, and pro­tec­tion and re­spect for women.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Sookdeo’s cousin Sur­ren­dra Dhan­ram said every time some­one goes miss­ing or a woman’s body is found, Sookdeo’s par­ents’ emo­tion­al pain would in­ten­si­fy.

Southerers take part in a candlelight vigil and march in memory of kidnapped victim Andrea Bharatt and to stop violence against women at Palmiste Park, San Fernando on Sunday.

Rishi Ragoonath

“Re­mem­ber they did not get clo­sure or any­thing, so it has been so bad for them. Up to last night when they came up in Palmiste they broke down there.”

Dhan­ram said the fam­i­ly feels as though the po­lice are no longer search­ing for Sookdeo, es­pe­cial­ly since they no longer re­ceive up­dates from the po­lice.

“No­body is be call­ing, you just feel like the case just dead. All of the cousins, every­body tries as much as pos­si­ble to share some­thing on Face­book to keep things ac­tive.”

With the na­tion­al call for the pro­tec­tion of women, he is hop­ing that the po­lice will beef up their in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to her dis­ap­pear­ance.

“We are hop­ing it will bring aware­ness and hope­ful­ly the po­lice will at least try back again be­cause the on­ly time any­thing is come up is be­cause of a tragedy and you will feel that now they might open back the case even though the po­lice say the case not close. But, if no­body call­ing or any­thing you would think no­body is do­ing any­thing.”

The fam­i­ly is al­so hop­ing that any­one who might know what hap­pened to Sookdeo or who was in­volved in her kid­nap­ping will now speak out in some way.

So far, the fam­i­ly’s ap­peals on­ly at­tract­ed heart­less and un­scrupu­lous peo­ple who tried to ex­tort mon­ey with fake in­for­ma­tion.

Relatives display photos of Ria Sookdeo who was kidnapped 2016 and never found took part in a candlelight vigil at Palmiste Park San Fernando in memory of kidnapped victim Andrea Bharatt on Sunday .

Rishi Ragoonath

“We ap­peal on Face­book and the on­ly thing you get is peo­ple with fake stuff, peo­ple who want to ex­tort mon­ey for in­for­ma­tion and that’s how it has been.” Sookdeo’s chil­dren still miss her. He said just a few days ago her daugh­ter cel­e­brat­ed her 14th birth­day and “all she want­ed was her mom.”

He said Sookdeo was the on­ly daugh­ter of her par­ents and the fam­i­ly con­tin­ues to cling to hope that one day she will be re­unit­ed with them.