Police from Wakenaam accompanied Jainarine’s mother, Salimoon Rahaman, and they promised to search further, she said. The hunter led them to where he had initially seen the bag. It is a spot which is covered when the tides are high, Rahaman said. According to her, the hunter said that it was a “rice bag” and he had slit it just a few inches and saw what appeared to be ribs. She said that he also clarified that he had seen it less than two weeks after the August 11 incident.
The hunter stated that the other items, which included a “long black toque”, brown hand gloves and checkered pants, were found in a blue basin which was “strapped with rope” some distance away, Rahaman said. From his description of the “short, three-quarter cargo checkered pants with pockets at the knees,” she believes that it belonged to her son. She noted too that the hunter said that it had appeared to be new and the pants that Ricky was wearing when he left that day was a new one. “I believe it got lil truth,” she stated.
She disclosed that the police have promised to return to search “cause they got to find something. They tell me don’t give up.”
Ricky went missing almost four months ago following a boat collision in the Essequibo River. His father, Jainarine Dinanauth, 45, and a family friend, Henry Gibson, 45, died in the August 11 incident. That evening, the three were heading to Hog Island in the Essequibo River. The bodies of the two men were discovered in the shattered boat the next morning but there was no sign of Ricky.
Relatives believe that rogue coast guards were involved in the incident and up to now it is not clear how it occurred. Rahaman had scoured the Essequibo in search of her son in the weeks following the incident but her searches failed to yield any sign of the lad. Relatives believe the rogue coast guards were involved and had rammed the boat, robbed the men and killed them. An investigation by the Maritime Administration Department had found blue paint on the green Coast Guard vessel and there were green paint marks on the blue and white boat that the trio was in. Persons had also reported that in the days following August 11, the Coast Guard boat was dry-docked for three days and there were reports that a section had been painted over. A Guyana Defence Force investigation was ‘inconclusive’ but it did find that the Coast Guard boat was in the river at the same time as the boat the trio was in. The blue paint samples from the Coast Guard boat were handed over to the police for testing. It is not clear if this has been completed as yet. The file on the matter was sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
