Bruised and en­tan­gled in a net, the body of miss­ing Car­li Bay fish­er­man Paras­ram Boodoo was fished out of the Gulf of Paria yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, two days af­ter he and an­oth­er fish­er­man went miss­ing in what po­lice be­lieve to be an­oth­er pi­rate at­tack.

Last night, two peo­ple were in po­lice cus­tody af­ter of­fi­cers re­trieved the stolen boat and en­gine at Granville, Ce­dros.

The death came on the an­niver­sary of the in­ci­dent in which five Or­ange Val­ley fish­er­men were killed by pi­rates on Ju­ly 22, 2019, af­ter be­ing robbed of their boats and en­gines. The six stolen en­gines were found float­ing on a pirogue at Sea Lots and two peo­ple were charged and giv­en bail.

At dawn yes­ter­day, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard, of­fi­cers from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Pa­trol and River­ine Unit and sev­er­al boat­loads of fish­er­men went in search of the miss­ing fish­er­men.

As news spread that Boodoo’s body was found, his moth­er Mary Sook­nanan broke down in tears. 

“Oh God, what they do my son,” she cried, hold­ing her stom­ach as she was led away in­to a car.

Boodoo’s broth­er, Satesh, said Paras­ram on­ly got in­to fish­ing af­ter he lost his job be­cause of the pan­dem­ic. When mon­ey was hard to come by, Boodoo de­cid­ed to go out to sea with his friend, cap­tain Navin­dra Garib. 

“He wasn’t work­ing. He went out for a few days and make a hus­tle with them and he liked it. This is the out­come,” Satesh said. 

He added, “I can’t say what hap­pened. I be­lieve it was a pi­rate at­tack, some­one went to get them for an en­gine or boat. I don’t know. We just pray­ing for the best.”

An­oth­er broth­er, Dale Boodoo, said, “They went out with a 75-horse­pow­er en­gine and that could not take them far. He has a five-year-old child and he was just try­ing to pro­vide for his fam­i­ly. Be­cause of the state of the econ­o­my, he went to do fish­ing but he was a straight­en­er and painter by pro­fes­sion.”

Boat own­er Anil See­lochan said they usu­al­ly fished close to the bay.

“They did not go far. They would fish dur­ing the day. On Mon­day, they had half a pan of fu­el left so they went right out there in shal­low wa­ters in an area known as Pan Buoy around 4 pm to fish for a few hours. They were sup­posed to come back about 1 in the morn­ing. I would usu­al­ly meet them at 6 am to go to the mar­ket to sell the fish,” See­lochan said.

On Tues­day morn­ing when Garib and Boodoo failed to show, up, See­lochan made a re­port to the po­lice. He said they searched all of Tues­day and again yes­ter­day.

Garib’s broth­er Avinash said he too was pray­ing that some­how his broth­er would still be alive. He al­so said he sus­pect­ed that pi­rates were be­hind the at­tack.

Mean­while, Car­li Bay Fish­ing As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Imi­ti­az Khan said fish­er­men were fac­ing too many at­tacks on the high seas.

“Five weeks ago, a fish­er­man named Mr Vol­man was thrown over­board, en­gine miss­ing, boat miss­ing and Mr Vol­man was found dead. Now we have these two guys. I don’t have words to ex­plain what I am feel­ing now. It’s like no one cares,” Khan said.

He added, “Ex­pen­sive sur­veil­lance equip­ment came in­to the coun­try, yet there are in­suf­fi­cient pa­trols in the Gulf to pro­tect fish­er­men.”

Khan said many peo­ple had turned to farm­ing and fish­ing to earn a liveli­hood be­cause of the eco­nom­ic fall­out of the pan­dem­ic.

“We have 50,000 peo­ple in­volved in fish­ing in T&T, yet lit­tle is be­ing done to help fish­er­men,” Khan said.

He not­ed that the TTPS Coastal Pa­trol and River­ine Unit has been do­ing pa­trols but this too was in­suf­fi­cient, as it had not served to de­crease the num­ber of pi­rate at­tacks in the Gulf.

He added, “In 2019 when the sev­en fish­er­men were thrown over­board by pi­rates and five of them died, peo­ple were held and noth­ing hap­pened. We want to know what is hap­pen­ing with that mat­ter,” he said.

MP for the Cou­va North Ravi Rati­ram agreed that pira­cy was too preva­lent in the Gulf. 

“We need more pa­trols in these ar­eas...more pa­trol ves­sels with swifter re­spons­es, so in the event of an emer­gency, we will have im­me­di­ate sup­port be­ing giv­en to fish­er­men. We are al­so call­ing for GPS track­ing de­vices to be in­stalled on boats. We want prop­er light­ing for Car­li Bay. We are ask­ing for cam­eras to be in­stalled at the fish­ing fa­cil­i­ty,” Rati­ram said.

He added that a fund-rais­ing dri­ve will be arranged next month to as­sist with the in­stal­la­tion of cam­eras at the fa­cil­i­ty.

Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea cor­po­rate sec­re­tary Gary Aboud said the “Gulf of Pi­rates” is be­com­ing more and more mur­der­ous.

“FFOS and the Car­li Bay Fish­ing As­so­ci­a­tion warn that any ves­sel that ap­proach­es with­in 600 feet is con­sid­ered a dan­ger­ous threat and an act of vi­o­lence. Fish­er­men are warned to be on guard and be pre­pared to flee at any mo­ment. Our fish­ers are be­ing mur­dered at sea,” Aboud said in a state­ment.

He added, “With all the brand new mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar war ship’s docked at the Coast Guard Base, pira­cy and mur­der at sea will con­tin­ue un­abat­ed un­til we have func­tion­al radars.”

A post mortem will be done on Boodoo’s body to­day to de­ter­mine how he died, while the search for Garib will con­tin­ue.