Kidnapped Cunupia businessman found dead in shallow grave

HOURS after Lyncia Hansranah made a public appeal for her son, kidnapped businessman Sachel Kungebeharry, to be freed, police found his body in a shallow grave in Chaguanas.

Sitting at her Jerningham Road home on the evening of October 4, Hansranah was composed but trying to wrap her brain around the call she had received an hour earlier to say the body discovered in Longdenville on October 3 was that of her missing son.

Kungebeharry's body was found at a pond off Pokhor Road in Longdenville, eight days after three men kidnapped him in a marked police vehicle.

Earlier that day, in an interview with Newsday, Hansranah pleaded with the kidnappers to free her son. She said the family had paid a $500,000 ransom, expecting Kungebeharry, a used-car dealer, would be released safely.

On October 4, she said her biggest concern was that police might have been involved in his kidnapping.

"My entire thoughts is (about) the police involvement...me and my family all still feeling unsafe because it involves the police. You don't know who to trust any more. If they were here to protect and serve and it didn't work out that way, who can we trust?"

She is calling on the authorities to leave no stone unturned in finding and charging all those responsible.

She believes if Commissioner of Police Erla Harewood-Christopher could feel her pain, she would be motivated to seek quick justice.

"I'd like to let the commissioner know the way I feel. It hurts so much that there is nothing you could explain the hurt a mother has for a child, and I wish if she could feel the same way I feel.

"I am begging her to get all who is involved in this crime and get justice, please. Not only for me, but other people on the outside who had already had this problem."

Kungebeharry was abducted on September 25 when the vehicle he was travelling in with two other men was stopped by a marked police car. Three men dressed in police tactical gear got out and told him there was a warrant for his arrest before bundling him into their car and driving off.

Hansranah told Newsday on Thursday the family realised her son had been kidnapped and not arrested soon afterwards, when they were unable to find him at any nearby police stations and were also told there was no warrant out for him.

She said the family received a ransom call on September 26 and voicenotes of Kungebeharry speaking were shared as proof of life.

The kidnappers demanded a $500,000 ransom and that the police and media be kept out of the matter.

The family abided by these demands and paid the ransom on September 29 after selling off some of his vehicles, among other items, to come up with the money.

Despite their making the payment, Kungebeharry never returned home and the abductors cut all communication with the family.

This was when the worried mother broke her silence and made public pleas for her son's return.

Hansranah said the entire family tried to remain optimistic through the ordeal and it never crossed anyone's mind that he might have been dead.

"I was thinking they would have just take the ransom and would have released him. I wasn't even thinking that they would have killed him."

However, she said given the decomposed state of the body, she believes he may have been killed before the ransom was paid.

An autopsy is yet to be done at the Forensic Sciences Centre, St James.

She said now the family is struggling to hold it together and has not even told Kungebeharry's five-year-old son his father was missing. But she said he is an intelligent child and may already know.

"I feel he's seeing the reaction of his mom and the reaction of everybody, because (he) hasn't seen (his) dad in so long, 'Something is wrong with my dad.'"

Now, with Kungebeharry's loss, she believes life will never return to the way it was.

Given the likelihood of police involvement in the kidnapping, she said the family may not even be able to walk the streets again.

At the time of discovery, it was not clear that it was Kungebeharry's body.

Police said Crime Stoppers received an anonymous tip around 11.55 pm on October 3 about a foul smell at Pokhor Road, Longdenville. Responding officers discovered a disturbed part of a mud road with a human foot sticking out from the ground. Police excavated the body, which was about two feet underground. Fingerprint analysis identified it as Kungbeharry's.

Hansranah said several of her other children also visited and identified the body.

Days after the abduction, the police said in a release they were treating the matter seriously and a comprehensive investigation had been launched.

Three Central Division officers, two of whom were assigned to Caroni Police Station, were detained on October 2.

DCP Suzette Martin, in a WhatsApp response to a message seeking an update on the investigation on October 1, said, "There was a report of a kidnapping on (September 25) in the Central Division.

"At this time, the investigation is at a very sensitive stage and as such, I am unable to provide any further updates.

"The TTPS is actively pursuing several leads as soon as I am able to share additional information, I will."

Newsday has not been able to get an update since. Newsday was also unable to reach senior Central Division officials for comment on October 4.

After the revelation that the three officers had been detained, Chaguanas businessmen called for strict measures to weed out dirty cops.

Head of the Chaguanas Chamber of Industry and Commerce Baldath Maharaj said the incident would erode confidence in the police service. He called for "harsher" and more "disruptive" measures to tackle rogue elements in the service.

President of the Trinidad and Tobago Automotive Dealers Association (TTADA) Visham Babwah also suggested officers who commit crimes should face harsher penalties than civilians.