Close to a month af­ter his brazen ab­duc­tion by men dressed as po­lice of­fi­cers, Cunu­pia busi­ness­man Su­vesh Ram­nar­ine has been re­leased safe­ly. The 33-year-old is said to be rest­ing and in good spir­its with his fam­i­ly.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, in a state­ment, con­firmed that around 1.15 am yes­ter­day, Ram­nar­ine’s cap­tors al­leged­ly con­tact­ed his fam­i­ly, di­rect­ing them to a lo­ca­tion on Jern­ing­ham Road in Cunu­pia.

A male rel­a­tive re­port­ed­ly ar­rived at the site at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1.54 am, where he found Ram­nar­ine wait­ing and safe­ly brought him home. Fol­low­ing his re­turn, the fam­i­ly alert­ed the An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Unit (AKU).

Sgt Daulat and his team prompt­ly took Ram­nar­ine to a med­ical fa­cil­i­ty for a thor­ough check-up. Af­ter ex­am­i­na­tion, he was dis­charged and re­port­ed to be do­ing well.

The state­ment added that to sup­port his re­cov­ery, the TTPS has re­ferred him to the Vic­tim and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit, where pro­fes­sion­al coun­selling will be pro­vid­ed.

The TTPS as­sures the pub­lic that in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to this in­ci­dent are still ac­tive­ly be­ing con­duct­ed by a team of of­fi­cers un­der the su­per­vi­sion of Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Suzette Mar­tin, ACP Si­mon, Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Guy Al­leyne, and Su­per­in­ten­dent Eti­enne, along with of­fi­cers from sev­er­al units with­in the TTPS.

The in­ci­dent be­gan on Oc­to­ber 12, when Ram­nar­ine was at Rob’s Bar, South­ern Main Road, Cunu­pia. Re­ports in­di­cate he was con­front­ed by armed men dressed in po­lice at­tire, who forced him out of the es­tab­lish­ment and in­to a black Hyundai Tuc­son SUV.

Short­ly af­ter the kid­nap­ping, Ram­nar­ine’s fam­i­ly re­ceived calls from in­di­vid­u­als claim­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and de­mand­ing a ran­som of $3 mil­lion for his safe re­lease. Po­lice have not con­firmed if any ran­som was paid.

This in­ci­dent high­lights a dis­turb­ing trend of im­per­son­ation crimes and ran­som de­mands that have be­come a con­cern in T&T, prompt­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher to re­call tac­ti­cal uni­forms from of­fi­cers across the po­lice ser­vice.

While Ram­nar­ine’s safe re­turn brings re­lief, the in­ci­dent un­der­scores on­go­ing con­cerns about pub­lic safe­ty and the need for vig­i­lance amidst ris­ing crime.

The re­lease has been met with re­lief by many, in­clud­ing MP for Ch­agua­nas West Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, who ex­pressed grat­i­tude that Ram­nar­ine has been re­turned safe­ly to his fam­i­ly. Ram­bal­ly urged the po­lice to con­tin­ue in­ves­ti­gat­ing the case to bring those re­spon­si­ble to jus­tice.

“The po­lice need to ur­gent­ly iden­ti­fy those re­spon­si­ble for these kid­nap­pings, as they are be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly fre­quent and se­vere. In this case, Su­vesh Ram­nar­ine is for­tu­nate­ly alive and safe­ly re­turned to his fam­i­ly. How­ev­er, in an­oth­er re­cent case, a fam­i­ly re­port­ed­ly paid a ran­som on­ly to face a trag­ic out­come. Dis­turbing­ly, there are sug­ges­tions that in­di­vid­u­als pos­ing as po­lice of­fi­cers may have been in­volved,” he said.

Ram­bal­ly added, “For now, we await fur­ther up­dates, but it’s clear that swift ac­tion is need­ed to bring those be­hind these kid­nap­pings to jus­tice and to pre­vent fu­ture in­ci­dents.”

Late last evening, Ram­nar­ine took to so­cial me­dia to thank every­one for their prayers and love. “I was shocked with all the love I got from every­one. I am fine and thank God. I’ll get my phone num­ber ac­tive by to­mor­row for every­one try­ing to reach me. To all my friends and sup­port­ers, I love you all! I have read every­one’s com­ment, and I will be shar­ing more in the days to come. Re­mem­ber,  in life, cir­cum­stances may slow you down, but nev­er let it stop you! The show goes on,” the post on his of­fi­cial Face­book ac­count stat­ed.