Shakti’s kidnapper: We wuh we money!

A CONVERSATION between kidnappers on Friday night and the father of  the country’s latest kidnapped victim, Shakti Pooran of Rousillac Village, South Trinidad, did not seem to go down well for a possible safe release. Shakti, 19, the son of proprietor of Pooran’s Glass Suppliers of San Fernando, Gopaul Pooran, went missing on Thursday. His kidnappers are demanding $200,000 for his release. Sunday Newsday visited the Pooran family at their businessplace on Rushworth Street and spoke to relatives who were stunned and in deep grief. Pooran is the father of three and son Shakti worked with him in what is a small cottage-type workshop in which the family are involved in glass-cutting and building various types of exotic household funiture from glass. They have another branch at Vistabella, a short distance away close to Marabella. The family live downstairs their businessplace in the heart of San Fernando, obliquely opposite Scotiabank and a stone’s throw from Southern Police Headquarters. When Sunday Newsday visited shortly before midday, relatives woke Pooran from sleep. He had been up all night, they said. Pooran said that around 11.45 pm the phone in his living room rang and he answered. “We wuh we money’ That is what he said,”

Pooran told Sunday Newsday. “I said..’hello’ and the person said ‘Yuh make up the thing,” Pooran, rocking back on a chair, told Sunday Newsday. It was the fifth telephone call from the kidnappers and Pooran said he is certain the person on the other end could not have been someone much older than 20 years. “And I can say, the person have a voice of an Indian,” Pooran said. The businessman said he held the phone to his ear and replied almost immediately: “Yes I make up something; but I want to hear my son’s voice.” Pooran said the kidnapper asked him: “You wuh meh bring the boy for yuh?” The kidnapper, he added, then told him: “See me, I duh want to go to jail nah.” Pooran said that he heard another male voice in the background and he again, raising his voice, said: “I raise something but we have to negotiate.” The conversation continued during which the kidnapper asked Pooran for his cellular number. “Then he told me ‘the longer we keep him the money will go up’,” Pooran told Sunday Newsday.