Twenty-one-year-old Rorhema Dookie, who was kidnapped on Wednesday night, was last evening reunited with her family after she was pulled out of a house in the city by a woman who thought she may have been the girlfriend of one of her kidnappers.
Dookie, the daughter of popular Pike Street businessman Beharry ‘Natoo’ Dookie, was abducted by three gunmen and last night her father said while a ransom was demanded none was paid. The young woman had just exited classes from a school on Thomas Street, North Cummingsburg to meet her waiting boyfriend, Joel Oudkerk, when the kidnappers struck, hitting the young man twice in his head before abducting her.
It was a joyous scene when Stabroek News visited the Pike Street home last evening minutes after Rorhema and her father arrived at around 9 pm.
“She is safe, she is good, she went to the hospital and everything alright,” an obviously happy Dookie announced to all the anxious well-wishers who were gathered at the house.
While Rorhema was surrounded by a number of women who hugged and kissed her, Dookie headed straight to his bar and opened a bottle of Absolute Vodka and poured drinks for his friends. There were smiles and backslapping all around as every one celebrated a happy ending to the abduction.
The young woman was then taken upstairs and it was a refreshed, smiling and sometimes laughing Rorhema who returned downstairs to the shop to speak to reporters.
She recounted that she had just left her classes and approached her boyfriend when a vehicle pulled up and some men approached them, hit her boyfriend and one of them grabbed her. Asked how many men were there, Rorhema said she was not sure but she thought it was three.
“I think it was three of them, I know two of them were sitting on the back seat where they put me to lie down and one was driving,” she said. One of them was armed with a “small silver gun.” She said the men had “jerseys” over their faces and they placed a cloth over her face and as such she could not say which part of the city they took her.
‘Many turns’
“I don’t know where they took me but what I know it had many turns and then we arrived and they took me into a building…:
Rorhema said she was then placed in a room with a mattress on the floor and there was also garbage on the floor. She was not tied up and her kidnappers did not hurt her in any way.
“They told me if I co-operate with them and don’t scream or anything I will soon go home to daddy and that is what I was trying to do. Every time anyone of them come in the room they would cover their face.”
She slept the night and yesterday morning she was given biscuits and cheese to eat, the only meal she had for the entire day before being rescued yesterday.
According to Rorhema a woman burst into the room last evening and asked her who she was but she did not want to give her name because she was scared.
“She keep asking me who I was and I didn’t want tell her I is the girl who get kidnap because I was frighten. But she keep asking me is like she think I with one of the men and she is one of them girlfriend so I don’t know if she think… She then hold my hand and pull me out the house into the street and plenty people come around and I say I is the girl who get kidnap and another lady carry me to the station,” she recounted.
The station she was taken to was the East La Penitence Police Station.
Up to last night the police were yet to issue a statement on the incident and as such it is not clear if anyone has been arrested.
Rorhema could not say whether the woman who “pulled” her out of the house was arrested. Stiff anti-kidnapping legislation had been passed by the government several years ago during a spate of kidnappings. A police anti-kidnapping group was also set up.
‘Misinformed’
Rorhema said she has no idea why she was kidnapped as her abductors did not give her any information.
“I think they were misinformed because she tell me how they say her father owe them some money and I don’t owe anybody money,” her father interjected at that point as he held his daughter tightly.
While not going into details Dookie said he “almost” paid a ransom but was told “by my advisor not to.”
He was high in praise for the police officers who worked on the case, many of whom were at the shop taking part in the celebration. He singled out a few of them for special mention.
“I am so happy my daughter is back and I want to thank all the police for the work they did,” a beaming Dookie said.
Natoo’s bar had been the site of a grisly attack in the midst of an upsurge in crime in 2002, when a gunman opened fire on patrons, killing four people and wounding others including the then acting Director of Public Prosecutions.