Rambharat: Car rental services issue must be addressed

After recent homicides involving rented vehicles, among previous incidents of the same kind, Minister of Agriculture Clarence Rambharat said such services “need to be addressed.”

He was speaking at the senate on Tuesday afternoon.

Independent senator Paul Richards put forward a motion regarding finding solutions to the issue of violence against women and girls.

Last week, Gasparillo businessman Anand Maharaj was found dead at the home of a man who rented a car from him. The owner of Triple-A Auto Services Ltd was found wrapped in plastic and shoved under a couch. An autopsy found he had died of asphyxiation.

And over the weekend, San Fernando resident Osie Leonard was found in the trunk of an abandoned, rented car at the Roodal Cemetery.

Also, in February, a rented vehicle was used in the kidnapping and murder of 23-year-old Andrea Bharatt.

“I knew Anand well. I knew him as a businessman and as an upright citizen of Gasparillo and that car rental thing was featured in that, with Andrea Bharatt, car rental featured in that…It sounds very innocent but there’s been this mechanism of car rental and lease-to-own that has criminal elements. I’m not saying throughout but they have criminal elements that should be addressed.”