Mute man kidnapped for $1,000

THE ANTI Kidnapping Squad (AKS) has been called in to investigate a report that a mute and mentally-challenged man has been kidnapped for $1,000.

It was first thought that 22-year-old Vejay Morgansingh had wandered off as he usually does, according to his 60-year-old mother, Cynthia Morgansingh. But this theory changed when Morgansingh’s 84-year-old grandmother, Angela Pascall began receiving ransom demand calls on Thursday. Three telephone calls were made to the elderly woman’s home on that day, with the callers requesting $5,000 on one occasion and $10,000 twice.

Around 2.05pm Friday and in the presence of Morgansingh’s mother, another call came asking that $1,000 be given for the dumb man’s safe return. On that occasion, police said the alleged kidnappers said they would call back between 4 and 5pm, but they never did.  Around 10.50pm Saturday, however, the kidnappers contacted Pascall asking her if the money was ready.  Again they promised to call back yesterday, but up to late evening Pascall said they did not . The woman also said that the voices sounded different, and that the people on the other line threatened to kill her grandson if the boy’s father, Norris Pascall, did not come up with the ransom money. During the calls, Pascall told Newsday that she requested from the kidnappers that they put Morgansingh on the phone, but they hung up.

Asked how she would have known whether or not her grandson was on the phone, the elderly woman said: “I would have known because he would have responded in a dummy way.” She added that she is not even sure if her son is really kidnapped, or someone playing a trick.  AKS officers, too, said while they are investigating the report, they weren’t ruling out the possibility of someone playing a prank. Police said the people who are making the phone calls may have seen the missing person report regarding Morgansingh in the newspapers and decided to call the relatives to see if they could get money. There was a phone number attached to the missing person report which appeared in the last edition of Wednesday’s Newsday.  It was reported then that Morgansingh disappeared last Monday while he was at his father’s home at Sawmill Road, Valencia.

At the time, Morgansingh was assisting his father with chores, and around 8.30am that day police said Pascall instructed his son to go to the back of his house, where he was to wait for him near a coal pit. However, when Pascall went in search of Morgansingh, he could not be found.  A village search was launched, but it proved futile. At the time of his disappearance, Morgansingh was wearing tall black rubber boots, a beige-coloured pants, an off-white jersey and had a cutlass in his possession.

Yesterday, his mother, Cynthia, appealed to the people who have her son to release him, because she is a poor woman and does not even have $100.  She said she is unemployed, while her son’s father is a gardener. Cpls Nesbitt and Tangwok of the Anti Kidnapping Squad (AKS), along with officers of the Valencia Station are continuing investigations. Meantime, the AKS and Carenage police say they have no word yet on the whereabouts of Stanley Dehere who was reportedly snatched in the Carenage area last Thursday for a $75,000 ransom and some illegal drugs.