Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son.co.tt

Days af­ter a $500,000 ran­som was al­leged­ly paid for “ab­duct­ed” busi­ness­man Sachel Kunge­be­har­ry, his body was found in a shal­low grave in Long­donville, Ch­agua­nas, on Thurs­day.

Hunters Search and Res­cue Team cap­tain Val­lence Ramb­harat con­firmed that his body was iden­ti­fied by rel­a­tives yes­ter­day.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, of­fi­cers from the Long­donville Po­lice Post re­spond­ed to a re­port at 11.55 am, re­ceived from Crime Stop­pers, of a foul stench at Pokhor Road.

On ar­rival there at 12.55 pm, they pro­ceed­ed in­to a grav­el road and then 60 feet in­to a dirt road. They came up­on a dis­turbed area in the mid­dle of the mud road with a foot stick­ing out.

When oth­er of­fi­cers from the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion and un­der­tak­ers ar­rived, the area was ex­ca­vat­ed. The body was found two feet un­der­ground, face down with both hands bound, in a se­mi-state of de­com­po­si­tion.

Kunge­be­har­ry, a used car deal­er of Cunu­pia, was al­leged­ly ab­duct­ed on Sep­tem­ber 25, when the car he was trav­el­ling in was stopped by a marked po­lice ve­hi­cle with flash­ing blue lights at 5 pm. Three men, two dressed in tac­ti­cal po­lice uni­forms, forced Kunge­be­har­ry in­to the po­lice ve­hi­cle, while two oth­ers ac­com­pa­ny­ing him were left un­harmed.

Rel­a­tives al­leged­ly paid a $500,000 ran­som for his re­lease last week­end.

Ramb­harat told Guardian Me­dia that at 2.02 pm yes­ter­day, his team was con­tact­ed by Kunge­be­har­ry’s rel­a­tives, who con­firmed his body was iden­ti­fied.

They told him they iden­ti­fied his body at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre and his iden­ti­ty was al­so con­firmed through fin­ger­prints. He said his team had been as­sist­ing the fam­i­ly in lo­cat­ing him af­ter a ran­som was paid last Sun­day.

Two po­lice of­fi­cers, a cor­po­ral and a po­lice con­sta­ble from the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion, re­mained in cus­tody last evening and a third man is as­sist­ing with po­lice in­quiries in­to the mat­ter.

The ar­rests, made by of­fi­cers from the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau and the An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Unit on Tues­day, came af­ter a po­lice ve­hi­cle sus­pect­ed of be­ing in­volved in the crime was im­pound­ed the day be­fore.

When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day for a com­ment, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Suzette Mar­tin said the TTPS would have is­sued a de­tailed state­ment be­fore 7 o’clock last evening but none was forth­com­ing up the press time.