What is Govt doing about Radha’s case?

THE EDITOR: The despair of the relatives and friends of missing teenager Radha Pixi Lakhan is compounded by the disdain shown to them by the Government. Whilst they grapple with their fears and the heavy dreadfulness of a missing loved one they are left out in the cold without a milligramme of support in any manner from the ruling clique. In their arrogance the Ministry of National Security has not seen it befitting to at least call the beleaguered family to offer words of comfort and support; not even when the missing girl’s father suffers a heart attack. The minister and junior minister of National Security and the Commissioner of Police choose to remain cold and heartless in the face of the family’s anguish.

The MP for the area, Hedwidge Bereaux does not have the human compassion to call or visit the distressed family. They cannot afford to donate a new car to the police. Their social status, their religious beliefs, and maybe even the texture of their hair is all wrong. We will never witness the Prime Minister visiting the Lakhans as he did with the ladies of the Breakfast Shed in their time of dilemma. The PM will quicker attend the dedication of a six hundred thousand dollar Pentecostal church but will never set aside the time to visit the embittered Lakhan family. Thank God for the commitment of hundreds of benevolent citizens who have made stupendous sacrifices in time, money, vehicles, food and beverages, and physical prowess to organise a nation-wide search for Radha.

Spurred on by Chandresh Sharma and Gary Griffith they continue to comb large areas of forested country in South and East Trinidad. To date their efforts have proved futile. Meanwhile the Regiment remains hunkered down at Teteron and their training, expertise and resources will not be utilised to find Radha. The gritty realism is that help will not be forthcoming from this Government. It took DOMA three years to realise that kidnapped victims are subject to all kinds of brutalities and indignities, and this was only realised when one of their own was kidnapped in March. Race, class, affluence, and power have benumbed their sensibilities.

Fettered by their greed to hold on to economic and political power, they refuse to utter one word of caring support to Radha’s parents. Since the release of the Westmooring’s jogger they have retreated into their golden palaces and their ivory towers. Perhaps they are leaving it up to the party group consisting of the naughty women of comedy, all starry-eyed supporters of the Government. Not a chance there. It is deeply unsettling to hear that in the midst of the Lakhan family’s struggle to cope with the fate of their daughter who is clearly a victim of a nefarious criminal act the song “Kidnap them” by a calypsonian bereft of decorum and respectability is still receiving outrageous encores when performed in public.

VINITRA SAROOP
Claxton Bay