SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

A $100,000 ran­som de­mand has been made for the safe re­lease of 63-year-old farmer Vish­nu Lal­la, who was kid­napped on Sat­ur­day evening.

Po­lice said that hours af­ter Lal­la was kid­napped, his van was found on fire at Es­per­an­za, Cou­va.

Of­fi­cers said that around 6.50 pm on Sat­ur­day, Lal­la, of Dairy Lane, Wind­sor Park, Cal­i­for­nia, was tend­ing to his an­i­mals when he was am­bushed and grabbed.

Po­lice said the farmer’s grey Toy­ota Hilux van was seen speed­ing off, and Lal­la was nowhere to be found. Around 30 min­utes lat­er, his wife was called from Lal­la’s phone, and a man on the oth­er end de­mand­ed the ran­som, which had to be paid by mid­night.

Po­lice lat­er dis­cov­ered Lal­la’s burnt-out Toy­ota Hilux on an aban­doned road off Pierre Road, George Street, and Es­per­an­za Road, Cou­va.

Lo­cal gov­ern­ment coun­cil­lor Gan­garam Gopaul, rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Brechin Cas­tle/Es­per­an­za in the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, said he has spo­ken with Lal­la’s rel­a­tives, who re­main in a state of dis­tress and un­cer­tain­ty.

Lal­la, a live­stock farmer, lived with his wife, An­gela. The coun­cil­lor said the cou­ple had no chil­dren.

Lal­la is said to be the broth­er of busi­ness­man Kr­ish­na Lal­la, the founder of Su­per In­dus­tri­al Ser­vices Ltd.

Gopaul told Guardian Me­dia that he was in­formed of the kid­nap­ping by a res­i­dent of the area.

“Mr Lal­la is a qui­et man whom I’ve known for years. He’s not a big [wealthy per­son] — he just minds his few an­i­mals at Dairy Road,” Gopaul said.

The coun­cil­lor added that he has long been lob­by­ing for in­creased po­lice pa­trols in the area, cit­ing fre­quent re­ports of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty. He not­ed that sev­er­al years ago, Lal­la’s wife was robbed and chopped by in­trud­ers at­tempt­ing to steal their live­stock.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the fam­i­ly’s prop­er­ty, no one was at home. A pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty firm had been sta­tioned out­side the premis­es. Gopaul al­so vis­it­ed the site where the van was torched, de­scrib­ing the area as a net­work of aban­doned roads con­nect­ing Wind­sor Park, Es­per­an­za, and Bas­ta Hall — rem­nants of the old Ca­roni (1975) Lim­it­ed sug­ar es­tate, which ceased pro­duc­tion in 2003.

The An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Unit is con­tin­u­ing its in­ves­ti­ga­tions.