Jensen La Vende 

Po­lice have con­firmed that an undis­closed ran­som de­mand has been made for the safe re­lease of kid­nap vic­tim An­isha Ho­sein-Singh.

Ho­sein-Singh, 27, along with her hus­band and oth­er work­ers were set­ting up the tents for the Sauce & Sons Dou­bles out­let along the East­ern Main Road, El Do­ra­do, around 5.50 am on Sat­ur­day when a sil­ver B15 car with three masked men pulled up and bun­dled her in­to the ve­hi­cle.

The car was found aban­doned at Llu­en­go Vil­lage, Mara­cas Val­ley, St Joseph, sev­er­al hours af­ter the kid­nap­ping.

Speak­ing on the Pow­er Break­fast Show yes­ter­day, the head of the Spe­cialised Sup­port Di­vi­sion, ACP Wayne Mys­tar, said the de­mand was made but did not dis­close the amount. He did not say when the de­mand was made, ei­ther. 

“The An­ti-kid­nap­ping Unit would have in­di­cat­ed there was a ran­som (de­mand) and some spe­cial ne­go­ti­a­tions are go­ing on so ... we are keep­ing our fin­gers crossed that those ne­go­ti­a­tions work out,” he told the show’s hosts. 

Mys­tar added that part of the pro­to­col was proof of life, which, at the time of the show, they did not have.

The kid­nap­ping of Ho­sein-Singh is the sixth at­tack against the Sauce Dou­bles fam­i­ly in the past four years. Mys­tar said there was a trend that is “dif­fi­cult to piece to­geth­er.” 

“The TTPS is pay­ing at­ten­tion to that par­tic­u­lar trend and is try­ing to piece this to­geth­er be­cause it is not busi­ness as nor­mal, but there is a trend,”  he added.

Mys­tar as­sured that the po­lice were treat­ing the kid­nap­ping with ur­gency.

He said there was a need to im­prove the CCTV cam­era sys­tem in the coun­try that can be used to ad­dress crime. Mys­tar al­so said one of the chal­lenges fac­ing the po­lice was wit­ness­es reneg­ing af­ter giv­ing state­ments. 

He added that the “re­volv­ing door” of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, where peo­ple come out of prison with a “big­ger and bet­ter way to con­tin­ue to com­mit crime,” is an­oth­er chal­lenge. 

Asked about the use of drones and he­li­copters, Mys­tar said the po­lice have an aer­i­al sup­port unit us­ing drones but lament­ed that in cas­es of kid­nap­pings and car thefts, he­li­copters may be need­ed. 

“He­li­copters def­i­nite­ly is one of the re­sources nec­es­sary to as­sist us with what is hap­pen­ing; kid­nap­pings and stolen ve­hi­cles.” 

He called on the pop­u­la­tion to part­ner with po­lice, who he said were “not asleep,” to as­sist with solv­ing Ho­sein-Singh’s kid­nap­ping and oth­er of­fences. 

Acono res­i­dents sad­dened by the in­ci­dent

Guardian Me­dia re­turned to Acono Vil­lage yes­ter­day, where Ho­sein-Singh lives, and spoke with res­i­dents who said they were sad­dened by the in­ci­dent as the fam­i­ly was al­ways close to the com­mu­ni­ty and gen­er­ous. 

One man said the on­ly rea­son he was not out hunt­ing the kid­nap­pers was be­cause of his chil­dren. 

An­oth­er man said Ho­sein-Singh’s fa­ther was just pulling up to help de­liv­er ma­te­r­i­al on Sat­ur­day when he wit­nessed his daugh­ter be­ing dragged in­to the car by kid­nap­pers. 

The men said that since then, they were told that he re­mained in a dark room of his house. On Mon­day, a rel­a­tive said it was the first day that he slept or ate, and he on­ly slept af­ter he was med­icat­ed. 

On Mon­day night, Fa­ther Mikhail Woodruffe host­ed a can­dle­light vig­il from the Acono Vil­lage Junc­tion near the fam­i­ly’s home.  

He be­gan the walk, which saw dozens of peo­ple, most in white, com­ing out to show sup­port for the fam­i­ly. 

His prayer was that the fam­i­ly be com­fort­ed and for hearts of stone, a clear ref­er­ence to the ab­duc­tors, to be turned to hearts of com­pas­sion and love. 

The vig­il was led by flag­man Willon Nurse, who led the crowd in chants of “Enough is Enough”, “We fed-up”, and “Set her free!” 

On Mon­day, res­i­dents said there were claims that the kid­nap­ping was linked to ex­tor­tion de­mands that were not met. How­ev­er, DCP Suzette Mar­tin, who said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was at a sen­si­tive stage then, con­firmed it was one of the the­o­ries the po­lice were look­ing at.

“We can­not con­firm at this time that, that is the cause of it, but that is one of the the­o­ries that we have.”

Asked about the po­lice es­tab­lish­ing an ex­tor­tion unit, Mar­tin said that is not be­ing con­sid­ered at this time.

“No, we don’t have that, and that is why I am say­ing if busi­ness­men are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing that, they can make a re­port to the po­lice or they can call me, and I will speak with them and treat with the is­sue.”