An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Al­most five hours af­ter kid­napped teenag­er Za­heer Samuel was aban­doned by his ab­duc­tors in a forest­ed area in San Pablo, Va­len­cia, he trekked through mud and bush and even crossed a riv­er bare­foot to seek help from res­i­dents at Quar­ry Road, Va­len­cia.

Bloody from thorny bush­es and ra­zor grass slic­ing at his body; with sores on the soles of his feet; his knees and hands bruised from brac­ing him­self every time he fell; bat­tling in­sect bites; and hun­gry and fright­ened hav­ing stum­bled in the dark, Samuel, 14, walked in­to a house at 10.15 pm on Wednes­day and asked its oc­cu­pants to call his moth­er.

Ini­tial­ly, Za­heer sent one woman scream­ing for help and the oth­er oc­cu­pants scram­bling to lock up, fear­ing he was an in­trud­er when he peered through the house’s open front door.

While his free­dom came 17 hours af­ter he was snatched by armed men out­side his par­ents’ busi­ness—the S&S Plant and Gar­den Shop along the East­ern Main Road, St Au­gus­tine, at 5.30 am on Wednes­day, res­i­dents of Quar­ry Road yes­ter­day cred­it­ed the teenag­er for mak­ing it out alive.

The own­er of the house, who re­fused to be named, said the Form Four St George’s Col­lege stu­dent would have en­dured rugged ter­rain.

“He had was to cross some riv­er and re­al bush cause he was in a mess. He ac­tu­al­ly come ... meh door does al­ways be open, as like he was hear­ing the lil noise and chil­dren and he come and kin­da peep in. Meh madam see him and she start to bawl, think­ing what is this! He left and kin­da walk around to the side of the house and he see one of my sons and them. He talk to one of my sons and then he come and sit down in the gallery, kin­da mo­tion­less,” the man said.

Re­al­is­ing Samuel posed no threat to his fam­i­ly, the man, who was yes­ter­day hailed as a Good Samar­i­tan, said he on­ly learned Samuel had been kid­napped hours ear­li­er af­ter he be­gan ques­tion­ing him.

Hus­tling Samuel in­to his house as he too be­came con­cerned that the ab­duc­tors could come look­ing for the teenag­er, the man said Samuel told them he had not eat­en since be­ing snatched.

Com­mend­ing the fright­ened teenag­er for main­tain­ing a sense of calm through­out, the man said, “He was re­al calm eh, that was the one thing I feel prob­a­bly, maybe, kin­da as­sist in sav­ing he life.”

In the midst of mak­ing bread, the fam­i­ly had noth­ing else to of­fer Samuel to eat but gave him a boxed juice to drink.

“He asked me to call his moth­er but we didn’t have no mon­ey on the phones. I tell my madam to call the po­lice one time and with­in she call­ing the po­lice, two min­utes time, four jeep load come down the road.”

In­sist­ing the area where he lived was peace­ful, the res­i­dent said they were ac­cus­tomed to see­ing strangers on their way to hunt or plant gar­den.

He sur­mised, “They prob­a­bly had him over the riv­er on that side.”

Asked about the phys­i­cal con­di­tion of Samuel at the time, the res­i­dent said, “He was bare­foot, soak­ing wet. All he foot, like he re­al­ly run through some se­ri­ous bush.”

He said Samuel re­count­ed the or­deal to them.

“He said they had him some­where in the bush but he was blind­fold and then he say it was like three men or three young boys, or what­ev­er the case may be ... he say they had masks on so he didn’t get to see any­thing or see any­body like that.”

Asked if Samuel re­vealed how he es­caped, the res­i­dent said, “The fel­la duct-tape he foot and he hand, and he say one of meh foot giv­ing meh prob­lems and one of them ... me ain’t know if is out of the good­ness of they heart ... prob­a­bly in the sit­u­a­tion, end up tak­ing off the duct tape and they leave him in the bush and is so he es­cape. He say around 5 o’clock, like half five, I don’t know if he had a time­piece ... he leave and if you check the time, he reach by me af­ter 10. He must be was in a re­al se­ri­ous piece of bush. He woul­da be hours walk­ing, es­pe­cial­ly in the night, it woul­da be pitch black.”

Con­firm­ing there was a riv­er in the forest­ed area where Samuel emerged from, he con­tin­ued, “He say he pass through some dirt road and then some grav­el road, and he fall down in some big drain or like a riv­er or some kin­da thing so.”

Say­ing he was all too will­ing to help the kid­napped teenag­er, as he had nine chil­dren of his own, the res­i­dent added, “It was re­al­ly kin­da touch­ing.”

He ad­mit­ted he would now have to re­think how his fam­i­ly op­er­at­ed in terms of leav­ing their front door open un­til late.

“The dis­cus­sion re­al­ly is that we re­al­ly have to prob­a­bly fence we yard!” he said, urg­ing Gov­ern­ment to fix the crime prob­lem.

Za­heer’s fam­i­ly was in­formed of his safe re­cov­ery at 10.45 pm, and re­unit­ed with him at the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal at 11.15 pm.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Za­heer’s fa­ther, William Samuel, said af­ter hear­ing where his son had been tak­en and aban­doned by the kid­nap­pers, “I very thank­ful be­cause we coul­da lorse him.”

Say­ing Za­heer re­mained “good and strong,” the el­der Samuel thanked the pub­lic for their out­pour­ing of sup­port and prayers dur­ing the har­row­ing or­deal.

Even as he com­mend­ed the of­fi­cers of the An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Unit (AKU), he said it was Al­lah’s de­ci­sion for Za­heer to ul­ti­mate­ly re­turn to his fam­i­ly safe and un­harmed.

Za­heer is due to cel­e­brate his 15th birth­day on De­cem­ber 30.

Mean­while, in a re­lease yes­ter­day, the TTPS said of­fi­cers suc­cess­ful­ly res­cued Samuel dur­ing an in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tion in the East­ern Di­vi­sion on Wednes­day night.

It said the co­or­di­nat­ed op­er­a­tion was di­rect­ly su­per­vised by ASP Sookdeo, of the AKU, and in­volved mul­ti­ple spe­cialised units, in­clud­ing the East­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force (EDTF) and the Va­len­cia Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Unit.

Dur­ing an op­er­a­tion be­tween 9 pm and 2 am, it said of­fi­cers con­duct­ed thor­ough search­es of mul­ti­ple camps along San Pablo Road, Va­len­cia. Even­tu­al­ly, they were alert­ed by per­son­nel from the Va­len­cia Charge Room that Samuel had been found near De­fre­itas Ranch, off Quar­ry Road, Va­len­cia.

Ar­riv­ing at the lo­ca­tion to find Samuel stand­ing on the road where res­i­dents had brought him out, Sookdeo and his team took the teenag­er to the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal, where he was re­unit­ed with his fam­i­ly.

The TTPS re­vealed, “The med­ical ex­am­i­na­tion con­firmed the vic­tim was in sta­ble con­di­tion, and he was sub­se­quent­ly dis­charged in­to his fa­ther’s care.”