KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

The fam­i­ly of miss­ing Erin taxi dri­ver Anil Maraj is plead­ing with who­ev­er has him to en­sure that he takes his di­a­betes med­ica­tion.

Maraj, 40, left his home in Are­na Vil­lage around 11 am last Fri­day. He told his son Je­re­mi­ah that some­one hired him for a char­tered job but did not say who or where he was go­ing.

He has not re­turned home since, and no one has seen his white Nis­san Ti­i­da, reg­is­tra­tion PCU 6022.

Speak­ing at his home, Maraj’s el­dest son Josh Maraj said he tried call­ing his fa­ther yes­ter­day, but his phone re­mained off, and no one re­port­ed­ly saw him any­where. He left home wear­ing a grey jer­sey and black pants.

Be­liev­ing that some­one hi­jacked Maraj’s car and had him cap­tive, Josh plead­ed with his fa­ther’s cap­tor to ad­min­is­ter the med­ica­tion and keep him hy­drat­ed.

“He has di­a­betes. He has the med­ica­tion. I think the ve­hi­cle is sup­posed to have the med­ica­tion, or if not, you all ask him. The med­ica­tion is not cheap. It should be less than $50. If you all have a heart, buy any med­ica­tion and give him. It is re­al­ly hard. I mean, he has five chil­dren, and he does not do any­thing wrong to any­body,” Josh said.

He said it was strange for his fa­ther to leave home and not re­turn the same day. Maraj nev­er spends the night out and loves to bathe.

“Dad, if you are lis­ten­ing, I hope you, at least, get a show­er and your med­ica­tion be­cause I am not hear­ing any­thing. I do not know where to start to look for you be­cause we do not know any­thing. If you are lis­ten­ing, keep hope, we are try­ing our best.”

The fam­i­lies searched sev­er­al roads head­ing in­to forest­ed ar­eas and the Los Iros mud vol­cano.

They al­so asked pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­nies pa­trolling Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um’s field roads to look out for Maraj and his car.

Maraj’s moth­er, Es­ther Ram­per­sad, ad­mit­ted she did not know whether her son was dead or alive. How­ev­er, she be­lieves that the fam­i­ly will find him soon. Ram­per­sad said that while Maraj had mis­un­der­stand­ings with neigh­bours, he had no en­e­mies.

“I am not say­ing he is per­fect, but I do not think any­body would want to hurt him that way. Maraj, who al­so works at the Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, usu­al­ly takes char­tered jobs with his car.