Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Res­i­dents of Pe­nal and Debe are call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to ex­tend the cur­few to all ar­eas with­in the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, af­ter the kid­nap­ping and sub­se­quent res­cue of the grand­daugh­ter of hard­ware deal­er Beekham Gun­ness. The kid­nap­ping took place around 2 pm while the 19-year-old girl was re­turn­ing from her hair­dress­er at Ra­mai Trace, Debe. The teenag­er, who is ex­pect­ed to be­gin stud­ies at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies from Sep­tem­ber, told po­lice just as she got in­to her car, two men opened the door and en­tered the ve­hi­cle. They threat­ened to kill her if she screamed and or­dered her to dri­ve. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the ter­ri­fied girl obeyed in­struc­tions and told the men not to harm her and that she would com­ply with their in­struc­tions.

How­ev­er, she se­cret­ly man­aged to send a mes­sage to her fa­ther, us­ing speed di­al. "He called back and she start­ed to scream that they had kid­napped her," a close rel­a­tive re­vealed. The girl's fa­ther and some of his broth­ers im­me­di­ate­ly con­tact­ed the po­lice. De­tec­tives from the Debe, Pe­nal and Bar­rack­pore po­lice sta­tions, head­ed by ACP Fitzroy Fred­er­ick and Se­nior Supt Hack­shaw, quick­ly mo­bilised teams and be­gan track­ing the car. Sources said the men be­gan beat­ing the girl on her head and face af­ter she called her fa­ther. How­ev­er, sources said, up­on reach­ing Tul­sa Trace, the po­lice in­ter­cept­ed the car which crashed in an em­bank­ment. The of­fi­cers man­aged to ar­rest one of the sus­pects-17-years-old, of Bar­rack­pore. An­oth­er sus­pect re­mained at large up late yes­ter­day.

Po­lice said they be­lieved that the kid­nap­pers were plan­ning on trans­fer­ring the girl to an­oth­er car which was tail­ing her ve­hi­cle. The girl was said to be in a trau­ma­tised state yes­ter­day and was un­avail­able for com­ment. Her rel­a­tives, how­ev­er, said crim­i­nals were mov­ing in­to ar­eas which they be­lieved were not be­ing mon­i­tored by the po­lice. Chair­man of Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Prem­c­hand Sookoo said the cur­few should be ex­tend­ed to Pe­nal/Debe. He com­mend­ed the po­lice for swift ac­tion, say­ing that for far too long, res­i­dents of his area were be­ing held un­der siege by crim­i­nals. Sookoo said most peo­ple felt safe by the state of emer­gency but since the kid­nap­ping, fear has gripped the area. He added that most peo­ple were abid­ing by the cur­few hours but want­ed a stronger po­lice pres­ence in the area. Sev­er­al busi­ness peo­ple who were in­ter­viewed, but de­clined to go on record, said they were fear­ful that crim­i­nals would take re­venge once the state of emer­gency came to an end.