Mark Bas­sant

Lead Ed­i­tor, In­ves­tiga­tive Desk

A joint po­lice and army pa­trol spent more than six hours yes­ter­day in a forest­ed area in San­gre Grande as they searched for fur­ther clues in­to the kid­nap­ping of 23-year-old An­drea Bharatt, but their search came up emp­ty-hand­ed by the time they came out just af­ter 2 pm yes­ter­day.

The search took the law­men al­most three miles in­to Non­pariel Road, a wind­ing, par­tial­ly-pitched road that lat­er trans­forms in­to a dirt road where ve­hi­cles have to care­ful­ly ma­noeu­vre and are heav­i­ly forest­ed and lit­tered with a few homes and farm­land along the way.

Close to the two-and-a-half-mile mark of the road, an army truck was parked as two sol­diers stood guard with no one al­lowed be­yond that point as po­lice scoured the area for any sem­blance of clues that would bring them clos­er to find­ing Bharatt.

Over 50 po­lice and army of­fi­cers spent sev­er­al hours in the heav­i­ly forest­ed area comb­ing hilly ter­rain lit­tered with lush veg­e­ta­tion and sev­er­al aban­doned struc­tures.

Short­ly be­fore 2 pm, the search had end­ed.

“We spent con­sid­er­able time in­side the for­est, and we cov­ered miles in the search, but we didn’t find any­thing,” said a se­nior of­fi­cer as he left the scene.

The po­lice al­so had the as­sis­tance of track­er dogs in their search.

The law­men had gone to the area af­ter re­ceiv­ing cer­tain in­tel­li­gence.

A farmer gives police officers portugals during their search for Andrea Bharatt along Nonpariel Road, Sangre Grande, yesterday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

One Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­i­ment (TTR) truck left the scene af­ter the search was halt­ed, fol­lowed by a con­voy of at least six po­lice ve­hi­cles all packed with heav­i­ly armed of­fi­cers.

Bharatt was kid­napped on Fri­day af­ter she went in­to a Nis­san Ver­sa taxi with a co-work­er. Her co-work­er was dropped off in Cleaver Heights, Ari­ma. Bharatt’s home was a mere ten min­utes away, but she nev­er made it home.

One of the al­leged kid­nap­pers had told her fa­ther on Fri­day night—when her fa­ther spoke with her kid­nap­per a sec­ond time af­ter her fa­ther ap­peared ag­gres­sive the first time on the phone with him, he told her fa­ther, “for get­ting on so I will send your daugh­ter’s ears for you.”

He had al­so asked for a sum of mon­ey. How­ev­er, there was no fur­ther com­mu­ni­ca­tion from Bharatt’s kid­nap­pers.

In a me­dia re­lease, yes­ter­day evening the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith con­firmed that at least five sus­pects were now in po­lice cus­tody with re­spect to Bharatt’s kid­nap­ping.

Grif­fith im­plored the me­dia and the pub­lic to be care­ful about the in­for­ma­tion post­ed about Bharatt’s kid­nap­ping.

Grif­fith said, “Me­dia fren­zy over this in­ci­dent points out that too much in­for­ma­tion on this case could jeop­ar­dise the in­ves­ti­ga­tions and place the life of the vic­tim in fur­ther dan­ger.”

Se­nior po­lice sources in­formed Guardian Me­dia that the men in po­lice cus­tody are most­ly from East Trinidad.

In fact, one of the sus­pects’ de­tained is a 24-year-old labour­er from San­gre Grande who is said to be the son of a po­lice of­fi­cer, while an­oth­er sus­pect, who they be­lieve to be the mas­ter­mind in the kid­nap­ping, aged 37, al­so from San­gre Grande, is known to the po­lice as a “firearm of­fend­er, drug of­fend­er, rob­bery of­fend­er, lar­ce­ny of­fend­er, and a kid­nap­per.”

Andrea Bharatt

The 37-year-old, who is well known to po­lice with the alias­es “Fab­u­lous” and “Red­do”, was the first to be picked up at a fe­male com­pan­ion’s home in Pe­tit Bourg ear­ly Sun­day morn­ing by po­lice of­fi­cers of the An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Squad (AKS) and the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT).

Guardian Me­dia has al­so been re­li­ably in­formed by se­nior po­lice sources that a fe­male from the Ari­ma area, who had pur­chased Bharatt’s phone for the sum of $700 from one of the sus­pects, had al­so been ques­tioned by po­lice.

And while in­ves­ti­ga­tors say they will con­tin­ue to pur­sue spe­cif­ic leads as it re­lates to Bharatt, there was some good news af­ter 15-year-old Kade­sha Cox, who had gone miss­ing on Jan­u­ary 22, was found.

In a brief Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) re­lease, po­lice said Cox was found in the Port-of-Spain dis­trict and thanked the pub­lic for their as­sis­tance in as­sur­ing her safe re­turn.

Mean­while, prayers con­tin­ued among friends, fam­i­ly and strangers for her safe re­lease.

The group Women Help­ing Oth­ers (WHO) was among those join­ing the cho­rus of voic­es pray­ing for Bharatt.

“WHO is deeply sad­dened by the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing Ms Bharatt’s kid­nap­ping and words can­not ex­press the emo­tion­al pain and trau­ma her loved ones are cur­rent­ly ex­pe­ri­enc­ing,” a state­ment by the group said.

It added: “We will con­tin­ue to pray for her safe re­lease and urge mem­bers of the pub­lic with any in­for­ma­tion as to her where­abouts to con­tact the near­est po­lice sta­tion.”

One ra­dio sta­tion al­so opened its lines to mem­bers of the pub­lic yes­ter­day, to al­low them to of­fer their sup­port and prayers for her safe re­turn.

Private Corey Phillips clears a piece of bamboo along Nonpariel Road, Sangre Grande to clear the way for the regiment truck to pass as soldiers make their way to help find missing Andrea Bharatt yesterday.

ABRAHAM DAIZ