As police struggle to find clues as to who abducted and subsequently beheaded city businessman, Farouk Kalamadeen, relatives yesterday returned to Kingston where his body was found to look for his head.
Kalamadeen disappeared on April 2. His headless body was found early Wednesday morning near a trench on Cowan Street, Kingston. Up to press time the police had not made any significant breakthrough in their probe although they questioned four men on Wednesday following the discovery. Speaking to Stabroek News yesterday, sister-in-law of the dead man, Bibi Shadick said that relatives’ odyssey to the Kingston scene yielded little. “There was no word on the sighting of the head, but relatives remain hopeful that somehow the missing part would be found,” Shadick said.
Asked about how the family was coping, Shadick said, “We are kind of numb and for his wife it is still unreal to her because we are trying to think of all kinds of things as to what really happened. It’s like we are baffled about everything,” Shadick, a former government minister said.
She noted that relatives were also concerned about what kind of message is being sent in the way he was killed. “The whole ordeal is tough for the family to bear,” Shadick said.
The Member of Parliament told Stabroek News that the dead man’s mother and other relatives were expected in the country last night.
Meanwhile, she said relatives were also hopeful for an early post-mortem examination today so the body could be handed over to the Central Islamic Organisation of Guyana for burial according to Muslim rights.
Shadick said that Kalamadeen’s body will be wrapped in the traditional cotton cloth but the box would have to be completely covered.
From the time he was abducted to the day his body was found, the drama surrounding Kalamadeen generated a lot of interest both locally and in the Guyana diaspora. Some readers of Stabroek News’ articles online have commented that they were almost sure the businessman would not have returned alive once it took so long for him to be found. Relatives had said there was no ransom demand. Kalamadeen disappeared while jogging on the Houston Public Road around 6 am on April 2. Police said in a statement on Wednesday evening that his headless body was found on Cowan Street, Kingston clad in a red jersey and black pants and was barefooted. The police noted that by its general appearance, the body was later identified by his son, Irfan Kalamadeen. The discovery was made by persons heading to work in the area sometime after 6 am and the police were notified. The body, according to investigators, may not have been there for long as it had what appeared to be fresh blood on the chest. It appeared that the man’s head had been neatly and clinically severed. Significantly, there was no blood close to or around the body, which lay a few yards away from the nearby trench, indicating that Kalamadeen was killed somewhere else and his body dumped in the area. For several weeks there had been endless speculation, reports and arrests over the businessman’s abduction, but no one knew for certain where the former motor racer was. Eyewitnesses had reportedly told police that he was picked up by men in a dark-coloured vehicle.
Last week Wednesday, a member of the Special Constabulary was among four persons arrested by the police during a search at a Princes Street house in connection with Kalamadeen’s abduction. An unlicensed .32 pistol and five matching rounds were also seized from the house, a police statement had said. Stabroek News had been told earlier that Kalamadeen had been abducted by foreigners with whom he had problems, but his wife, Nariman Kalamadeen, had said that was not so. She however said it was clear he was being held against his will, but for reasons she did not know.
In addition to operating Jiffi Lubes automobile service centre, Kalamadeen was involved in gold mining. Back in 2002 at the height of the crime wave gunmen believed to have been the prison escapees had attempted to rob a house in Section ‘K’ Campbellville. Kalamadeen had told this newspaper that he responded to the attack. At the time, he was residing in the area.
