As the search for ab­duct­ed busi­ness­woman Ane­sha Nar­ine-Bood­hoo con­tin­ued last night, rel­a­tives and friends held a vig­il at her home in El So­cor­ro, San Juan, as they prayed for her safe re­turn.

The moth­er of two teenage girls was snatched around 8 am along Girez Lane by four men wear­ing what re­sem­bled po­lice uni­forms and bun­dled in­to a heav­i­ly-tint­ed black Rush equipped with blue strobe lights on the dash­board.

Guardian Me­dia was told that up to 3.40 pm yes­ter­day, no ran­som had been made for Nar­ine-Bood­hoo’s safe re­turn.

Along with her hus­band, Nar­ine-Bood­hoo op­er­ates the Au­tora­ma Lim­it­ed along the El So­cor­ro Main Road.

The for­mer Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion em­ploy­ee was tak­en me­tres away from the busi­ness, which is sit­u­at­ed up the street from the fam­i­ly home.

Re­ports in­di­cate that Nar­ine-Bood­hoo had walked with sev­er­al em­ploy­ees to open the busi­ness, as she was ac­cus­tomed to every morn­ing, and then walked back to the house to col­lect her white Pra­do. It is al­leged that as she drove off, the kid­nap­pers sped past and blocked her, be­fore hus­tling her out of her ve­hi­cle and in­to theirs, which then head­ed south to­wards the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way.

One res­i­dent along the street said they had ob­served sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ties dur­ing the past cou­ple weeks, with strange ve­hi­cles com­ing down the dead-end street and re­main­ing parked for hours. How­ev­er, be­liev­ing this to be plain clothes po­lice of­fi­cers, the res­i­dents did not raise any alarms as they felt it was noth­ing out of the or­di­nary.

One rel­a­tive who ar­rived at the house short­ly af­ter news spread of Nar­ine-Bood­hoo’s ab­duc­tion, ex­pressed con­cern that the fam­i­ly had not been con­tact­ed by the kid­nap­pers up to eight hours af­ter she had been grabbed.

He said, “We are on­ly pray­ing for her to come back safe­ly. If we have to pay a dol­lar...we will pay it.”

The Hunters’ Search and Res­cue team is al­so part of the ef­fort to lo­cate Nar­ine-Bood­hoo.

Ad­dress­ing the ab­duc­tion, Barataria/San Juan MP Sad­dam Ho­sein said the El So­cor­ro Main Road was one of the busiest streets in the dis­trict, and the kid­nap­ping was an in­di­ca­tion of just how ap­palling and dis­gust­ing the crime sit­u­a­tion had be­come.

Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly mean­while said the kid­nap­ping was “an as­sault on the safe­ty of all cit­i­zens.”

He said, “This rep­re­hen­si­ble act is not just an at­tack on one in­di­vid­ual but an as­sault on the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of our com­mu­ni­ty. Such in­ci­dents strike at the heart of our col­lec­tive well-be­ing, and we can­not al­low them to go unan­swered.”

Urg­ing the au­thor­i­ties to act swift­ly and de­ci­sive­ly, Ram­bal­ly said vi­o­lent crimes have no place in our so­ci­ety, and he called on cit­i­zens to stand unit­ed against those who seek to in­stil fear and dis­rupt life.

Re­fer­ring to the re­cent surge in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty over the Christ­mas pe­ri­od as deeply trou­bling, he urged Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley, to take a break from his Christ­mas and New Year limes and “pri­ori­tise the na­tion’s se­cu­ri­ty.”

Shad­ow Min­is­ter for Trade & In­dus­try, MP Rush­ton Paray, said the kid­nap­ping rep­re­sent­ed, “a se­vere and vi­o­lent on­slaught against the al­ready em­bat­tled trade and com­merce sec­tor in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

He said, “This heinous act comes in the wake of the killing of busi­ness­woman Lana Sa­hadeo and a se­vere ad­vi­so­ry from the Unit­ed States, warn­ing its cit­i­zens against pa­tro­n­is­ing cer­tain com­mer­cial es­tab­lish­ments in the St Au­gus­tine area.”

Warn­ing that cit­i­zens were con­tin­u­ous­ly fac­ing the ter­ror of re­lent­less rob­beries, bru­tal as­saults and home in­va­sions, Paray added, “The soar­ing costs for se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures have dra­mat­i­cal­ly es­ca­lat­ed op­er­at­ing ex­pens­es for busi­ness­es, oc­cur­ring amidst the harsh­est in­fla­tion and un­em­ploy­ment rates our na­tion has seen in its mod­ern his­to­ry.”

He ar­gued that rur­al and crime-plagued com­mu­ni­ties and the height­ened costs of de­liv­er­ing goods and ser­vices had im­posed fur­ther strains on the al­ready over­bur­dened na­tion.

SJ­BA urges cops to
solve case quick­ly

Mean­while, the San Juan Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion (SJ­BA) has ex­pressed dis­gust re­gard­ing the ab­duc­tion.

Pres­i­dent Ibrahim Ali said, “We are deeply con­cerned that one of our busi­ness as­so­ciates ... a woman, has been kid­napped in front of her busi­ness place.

“We are ask­ing the au­thor­i­ties to do what­ev­er it takes to have this woman re­turned to her fam­i­ly safe­ly. We un­der­stand the plight of the TTPS in ob­tain­ing search war­rants at this time, par­tic­u­lar­ly be­cause of the lat­est piece of leg­is­la­tion that re­quires the po­lice to ap­ply to a mas­ter of the court in or­der to ob­tain search war­rants.”

Ali added, “The lev­el of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties has reached such pro­por­tions that every cit­i­zen feels un­safe. The shoot­ing at the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way and now this.

“We feel the hurt and dis­com­fort that this fam­i­ly is go­ing through at this time. We ask that the Com­mis­sion­er em­ploy her best re­sources to solve this sit­u­a­tion as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.”

The Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce al­so ex­pressed its deep con­cern re­gard­ing the kid­nap­ping.

In a re­lease, the cham­ber said, “We note that these acts are com­mit­ted by crim­i­nals us­ing blue flash­ing lights and tac­ti­cal wear.

“We call on the au­thor­i­ties to clear­ly ad­vise the pop­u­la­tion how to re­spond to ve­hi­cles with blue flash­ing lights, es­pe­cial­ly when they are dri­ven by in­di­vid­u­als who are sus­pi­cious look­ing.”

It added, “Busi­ness­men in the area are ex­press­ing se­ri­ous fears es­pe­cial­ly with the ush­er­ing of the new year. This came on the heals of the re­cent up­surge in mur­ders com­mit­ted by in­di­vid­u­als or groups who ap­pear to be fear­less by bran­dish­ing high pow­ered weapons along the na­tion high­way.

“We are all at risk from the crim­i­nal el­e­ment even with per­son­al se­cu­ri­ty. Whilst we know there are hard work­ing law en­force­ment of­fi­cers the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty is call­ing on the au­thor­i­ties to clear­ly state how we should op­er­ate in sit­u­a­tions like these.”