The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has con­firmed that Za­hir Khan, who was ab­duct­ed from his home in Val­sayn on Sat­ur­day (De­cem­ber 14, 2024), has been res­cued and is now safe­ly en­sconced with his fam­i­ly.

In an of­fi­cial state­ment, the Po­lice Ser­vice re­ports that Za­hir Khan was res­cued in the ear­ly hours of Mon­day morn­ing (De­cem­ber 16, 2024).

“The … strate­gic, in­tel­li­gence-based op­er­a­tion … co­or­di­nat­ed by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Mrs. Er­la Hare­wood Christo­pher and Deputy Com­mis­sion­er Suzette Mar­tin and led by ASP (Ag) Stan­ley of the SIU, was con­duct­ed in a re­mote hilly area off Grena­do Street, Cale­do­nia—al­so known as Egypt—where of­fi­cers con­duct­ed a search of aban­doned struc­tures,” the TTPS re­lease re­vealed.

“Around 5:20 am, they were alert­ed by faint cries em­a­nat­ing from a wood­en gal­va­nized struc­ture in the area. On check­ing, Mr Khan was dis­cov­ered, alive and well. Mr. Khan was tak­en for med­ical at­ten­tion and was lat­er re­unit­ed with his fam­i­ly,” the re­lease said.

It added: “Mr. Khan can now spend Christ­mas with his fam­i­ly and loved ones—an out­come that pro­vides tremen­dous re­lief to his fam­i­ly. We are grate­ful for this out­come as we work res­olute­ly to en­sure pub­lic safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty.”

The TTPS re­ports that the sus­pects in­volved in the ab­duc­tion re­main at large.

“The sus­pects have so far been able to elude cap­ture, but of­fi­cers re­main stead­fast in their ef­forts to cap­ture the per­pe­tra­tors,” the state­ment re­port­ed.  “Po­lice re­cov­ered an AK-47 ri­fle with 12/ 7.62 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion, aban­doned by one of the sus­pects while flee­ing the scene.”

Ac­cord­ing to the TTPS, the ex­er­cise was con­duct­ed by teams from the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (SIU), Guard and Emer­gency Branch (GEB), Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Task Force (NOTF), North-East­ern Di­vi­sion (NED) Gang Unit, and Air Sup­port Unit.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher re­stat­ed the Po­lice Ser­vice’s com­mit­ment to deal­ing swift­ly with cas­es such as kid­nap­ping and ab­duc­tion.

“We in­tend to en­sure that any per­son held hostage, is found and safe­ly re­unit­ed with their loved ones,” she said, as she praised the of­fi­cers in­volved in the res­cue op­er­a­tion.  “This out­come [Za­hir Khan’s res­cue] is a tes­ta­ment to the ded­i­ca­tion and courage of our of­fi­cers.”

In ad­di­tion, Com­mis­sion­er Hare­wood-Christo­pher ap­pealed to those re­spon­si­ble for oth­er kid­nap­pings—in­clud­ing the on­go­ing case of Shashi Ram­per­sad—to re­lease the vic­tim im­me­di­ate­ly. 

She al­so af­firmed that “the TTPS will be un­re­lent­ing in its mis­sion to pro­tect the mem­bers of the pub­lic, and to hold per­pe­tra­tors ac­count­able.”