An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Less than 48 hours af­ter a Val­sayn pen­sion­er was kid­napped on Sat­ur­day, he was res­cued un­harmed in an aban­doned house at Sec­ond Cale­do­nia, Mor­vant, yes­ter­day.

Za­hir Khan, 69, of Bam­boo Set­tle­ment #1, was said to be in good spir­its and healthy when he was found.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher con­firmed the res­cue as she spoke with the me­dia at the scene of the fire at Far­fan Street, Ari­ma, which claimed the lives of MP Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian and two of her chil­dren.

The res­cue op­er­a­tion, which was spear­head­ed by both Hare­wood-Christo­pher and Deputy Com­mis­sion­er, In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions Suzette Mar­tin, in­clud­ed var­i­ous elite units of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

Re­veal­ing that Khan was un­hurt when he was found, the top cop said he was tak­en for med­ical treat­ment.

Asked if any sus­pects had been ar­rest­ed, Hare­wood-Christo­pher said no, but she as­sured that all ef­forts were be­ing made to lo­cate and ap­pre­hend those re­spon­si­ble.

Khan was grabbed by three armed men at 10.55 am on Sat­ur­day, as he stood in the front yard of his home.

Act­ing on in­for­ma­tion, var­i­ous elite units of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) sur­round­ed a house at Small Street, Sec­ond Cale­do­nia, Mor­vant, at 5 am yes­ter­day, forc­ing mul­ti­ple sus­pects to flee the scene.

Khan was re­port­ed­ly found tied up in one of the rooms, while a gun was found lean­ing against a door in an­oth­er room.

In a video post­ed to so­cial me­dia short­ly af­ter the kid­nap­ping, three men were seen run­ning out from a black Ti­i­da car just out­side Khan’s open gate­way. They were then seen grab­bing and drag­ging him in­to the wait­ing car. The video showed Khan be­ing bun­dled in­to the back­seat be­fore the car sped off.

Khan is the fa­ther of the own­er of the pop­u­lar cel­lu­lar phone and elec­tron­ics busi­ness Cell 4 Less, which has branch­es at Grand Bazaar, Val­sayn; Abou­tique Mall in Port-of-Spain; Xtra Plaza in Aranguez; Cen­tre City Mall in Ch­agua­nas; and Trinci­ty Mall.

In a brief state­ment on Sat­ur­day, DCP Mar­tin as­sured the au­thor­i­ties were work­ing dili­gent­ly and as­sid­u­ous­ly to re­cov­er the vic­tim. Mar­tin had ap­pealed to the pub­lic who may have had in­for­ma­tion about the kid­nap­ping to come for­ward and as­sist the au­thor­i­ties in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Asked if pub­lic tips had aid­ed in Khan’s res­cue yes­ter­day, Hare­wood-Christo­pher shied away from in­di­cat­ing this but said, “We con­tin­ue to thank the pub­lic for all in­for­ma­tion.”

Com­mend­ing the of­fi­cers in­volved in the op­er­a­tion for act­ing in a time­ly man­ner to lo­cate and res­cue Khan, the CoP said, “As the po­lice, we are able, and we have the ca­pa­bil­i­ty and ca­pac­i­ty, but we just con­tin­ue to ask for the sup­port of the coun­try.”