KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

A 22-year-old Rio Claro labour­er ap­peared vir­tu­al­ly in the High Court in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day in re­la­tion to an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the al­leged un­law­ful con­fine­ment and abuse of a woman.

Ro­hit Sita­hal ap­peared vir­tu­al­ly be­fore Mas­ter Kateisha Am­brose-Per­sads­ingh in the South Court A and was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­neys Keron Ramkhal­whan and Shali­ni Sankar.

Sita­hal is joint­ly charged with Joshua Ben­ny and Fa­ree­da Bal­go­b­in in con­nec­tion with al­le­ga­tions in­volv­ing Sabi­ta Bas­deo, a 42-year-old moth­er of two, who in­ves­ti­ga­tors say was un­law­ful­ly con­fined be­tween June 2019 and April 11, 2026. Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, Bas­deo was al­leged­ly forced to per­form do­mes­tic du­ties, abused and pre­vent­ed from leav­ing the res­i­dence dur­ing that pe­ri­od.

The case stems from an in­ci­dent that came to light af­ter a so­cial me­dia video cir­cu­lat­ed show­ing Bas­deo, which prompt­ed pub­lic in­ter­ven­tion and a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic alert­ed au­thor­i­ties af­ter view­ing the video, lead­ing to a res­cue op­er­a­tion and a for­mal probe.

Co-ac­cused Joshua Ben­ny and Fa­ree­da Bal­go­b­in are cur­rent­ly housed at the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al and Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre, where they are be­ing held un­der Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders.

Po­lice pros­e­cu­tor Sgt Salazar re­quest­ed a writ of habeas cor­pus to se­cure their at­ten­dance in court when the mat­ter re­sumes on June 10.

In ad­dress­ing bail con­sid­er­a­tions, Sgt Salazar asked that any bail set be pro­por­tion­ate to the se­ri­ous­ness of the of­fences.

Sita­hal faces four charges, in­clud­ing throw­ing a nox­ious sub­stance, griev­ous bod­i­ly harm and griev­ous sex­u­al as­sault.

Sita­hal was grant­ed $400,000 bail, sub­ject to con­di­tions in­clud­ing no di­rect or in­di­rect con­tact with the com­plainant, main­tain­ing a 50-foot dis­tance, re­port­ing to a po­lice sta­tion twice week­ly and re­sid­ing at the ad­dress pro­vid­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to the po­lice, in­ten­sive in­ves­ti­ga­tions were con­duct­ed by PC Lee Lum un­der the su­per­vi­sion of se­nior of­fi­cers, in­clud­ing Snr Supt Si­mon, W/Supt Bridge­lal, ASP Chul­han, In­sp Ram­di­al, In­sp Nand­lal and In­sp Ma­haraj. Le­gal ad­vice was al­so ob­tained from ASP Phillip dur­ing the in­ves­tiga­tive process.

Act­ing on in­struc­tions from Supt Bridge­lal and with as­sis­tance from Sgt Bas­sarath and of­fi­cers at­tached to the Princes Town and Bar­rack­pore Po­lice Sta­tions, charges were laid against the ac­cused.

Bal­go­b­in faces ten charges, in­clud­ing false im­pris­on­ment, kid­nap­ping, chok­ing, throw­ing a nox­ious sub­stance, as­sault oc­ca­sion­ing ac­tu­al bod­i­ly harm, and mul­ti­ple counts of griev­ous bod­i­ly harm and griev­ous as­sault. Ben­ny faces five charges, in­clud­ing kid­nap­ping, throw­ing a nox­ious sub­stance, griev­ous bod­i­ly harm and griev­ous as­sault.