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Six years after her disappearance, Ria Sookdeo’s family clings to hope

by

#meta[ag-author]
Sharlene Rampersad
20220922231920
20220922
Ria Sookdeo, who was kidnapped on September 22, 2016.

Ria Sookdeo, who was kidnapped on September 22, 2016.

It’s been six years since Ria Sookdeo was snatched away from her fam­i­ly af­ter drop­ping her chil­dren off to school in South Trinidad.

The fam­i­ly has spent thou­sands of dol­lars and days search­ing the most re­mote ar­eas of the coun­try for any sign of their beloved Ria.

Her fa­ther, Frankie Ra­jku­mar, had hoped the pas­sage of time may have dulled his pain, but speak­ing of that ter­ri­fy­ing day still re­duces him to tears. He looks on now as Ria’s chil­dren learn to nav­i­gate their teenage years with­out her but still clings to the hope that some­where, his “lit­tle girl” is alive.

Dur­ing a re­cent in­ter­view at his home in South Trinidad, Ra­jku­mar showed pho­tos of a young, smil­ing Ria, pos­ing for the cam­era with her two broth­ers.

Framed pho­tos of her at var­i­ous stages of her life dec­o­rate the walls of the fam­i­ly home, turn­ing their once-hap­py liv­ing room in­to a sa­cred shrine.

Rem­i­nisc­ing on her ear­ly years, Ra­jku­mar said Ria was al­ways ad­ven­tur­ous and brave.

“She was in preschool and like the teach­ers weren’t ob­ser­vant be­cause she left the school and walked out and went by her aunt. It was on­ly when her aunt saw her, she asked ‘Ria, what are you do­ing here?’ that she called my wife and told her,” Ra­jku­mar said.

That is just one of the many mem­o­ries the griev­ing fa­ther holds close. He spoke fond­ly of Ria, at 16, de­ter­mined to take a class in typ­ing in San Fer­nan­do and Ria sev­er­al years lat­er, in love and gid­dy at the prospect of mar­ry­ing her sweet­heart, Mark Sookdeo.

He re­mem­bers in heart-break­ing de­tail watch­ing her learn how to be a moth­er and strive to be a busi­ness own­er.

“She called and said, ‘Dad­dy, I want to build up a sa­lon home here, you could help me?’” Ra­jku­mar re­called.

He said he was all too hap­py to as­sist her and with­in weeks of her open­ing the sa­lon at her hus­band’s Welling­ton Road, Debe home, she was be­ing swarmed with cus­tomers.

“She used to work at an­oth­er hair­dress­ing place be­fore she got mar­ried and peo­ple re­mem­bered her, so when she opened up again she got a lot of clients.”

And al­though she now had her own life, Ria re­mained close to her par­ents, of­ten ask­ing her moth­er to ac­com­pa­ny her on shop­ping trips and as­sist her in the sa­lon.

Life turned up­side down

How­ev­er, their care­ful­ly nur­tured fam­i­ly dy­nam­ic suf­fered a dev­as­tat­ing blow on Sep­tem­ber 22, 2016, when Ria was ab­duct­ed by men out­side her chil­dren’s Pic­ton Vil­lage school min­utes af­ter she had dropped them off at school.

“I went to work one day, I was do­ing a tiling job for some peo­ple. I mix the thin set to start the job when the phone rang, my wife was on the oth­er side telling me Ria had been kid­napped. I thought she was mak­ing some kind of joke, then she start­ed to cry, it was then I be­lieve what she was say­ing was true and it was se­ri­ous,” Ra­jku­mar said.

The days that fol­lowed were cov­ered by the haze of grief that still lingers with Ra­jku­mar.

“I nev­er even thought some­thing like this could hap­pen to my daugh­ter, nev­er thought my fam­i­ly would be a vic­tim of a crime like this,” he said.

Ra­jku­mar said in the weeks that fol­lowed, his fam­i­ly was sur­round­ed by po­lice, the me­dia, well­wish­ers and sev­er­al con­men, who all claimed to have the “links” need­ed to bring his daugh­ter home.

“One guy came, a church broth­er ac­tu­al­ly brought him here. He said he have links in the un­der­world and he would help to find Ria. One of my nephews was here and asked him what it would cost us, I re­mem­ber this man say­ing ‘Is a life in­volved, this is not about mon­ey.’”

But the man’s ac­tions would be­tray his true in­ten­tions with­in days, when he ap­proached the fam­i­ly again, say­ing he had in­for­ma­tion about where Ria was be­ing held.

“He said he need to get mon­ey to buy walkie-talkies and rent cars so they could go and get her, he want­ed $10,000,” Ra­jku­mar said.

Blind­ed by grief, Ra­jku­mar agreed to hand the mon­ey over.

“He came here to col­lect it and when my nephew tried hand­ing it to him, he stopped him and told us he want­ed to pray with us first.”

The man re­turned days lat­er, claim­ing he had found Ria alive and well but he could of­fer no ev­i­dence and he did not re­turn.

Sev­er­al years ago, Ra­jku­mar learnt the man had been shot dead in a brawl at a bar.

“God works in his own tim­ing,” he said.

That man was not the on­ly one to ex­ploit Ra­jku­mar and his wife in their grief, as they quick­ly learnt that many were will­ing to come for­ward and of­fer their “ser­vices” for the right price.

No leads, no an­swers

But thou­sands of dol­lars lat­er, the fam­i­ly is no clos­er to an­swers.

Ra­jku­mar was al­so sent to var­i­ous lo­ca­tions across the coun­try af­ter be­ing told Ria had been spot­ted.

“A day some­one said they went to a spir­i­tu­al per­son who said Ria was be­ing kept in the bush­es be­hind the (Cou­va) Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal. A whole crew of us went up there, men, women, chil­dren, we beat that bush for hours, even the se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer came out from the hos­pi­tal and helped us,” he said.

On an­oth­er oc­ca­sion, Ra­jku­mar was told Ria was seen in Ce­dros and yet an­oth­er time in Venezuela.

All of those so-called leads led to dead ends.

“I sit here every day and imag­ine her walk­ing in­to the yard, just com­ing up to me and say­ing “hel­lo.”

His wife, who asked not to be named, sent out an emo­tion­al ap­peal to who­ev­er may have in­for­ma­tion on her daugh­ter’s where­abouts.

“Please, please, please, she has two chil­dren grow­ing up with­out a moth­er, she is my ba­by, she is every­thing to me, please, please give me my daugh­ter back,” she cried.

The el­der­ly cou­ple still holds on to their faith, both be­liev­ing that one day they will learn the truth about what re­al­ly hap­pened to their on­ly daugh­ter six years ago.


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