Salimoon Rahaman, the mother of missing boy, Ricky Jainarine says she does not believe the authorities are listening to her as almost a year after the Essequibo River boat incident that also left her reputed husband and another man dead, she has received no answers.
“I ask for justice and I ain’t get no justice,” Rahaman said last week as she expressed her frustration that despite her protests and appeals, she is yet to get an answer from the authorities. Ricky went missing 11 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 coastguards were involved in the incident but 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 him. Relatives believe that a bag that washed up at Wakenaam shortly after the incident and then disappeared; had contained his remains.
When contacted, Rahaman said she is “trying” but it is hard. She said up to a month ago, she visited the Parika police station and also contacted the Wakenaam police in a bid to get an update but the police had nothing to say to her. She has heard nothing from the army either. “It’s a very hard situation… I want to know what really happened,” she said. Rahaman said she still feels that Ricky is out there somewhere because she has not seen his body.
Relatives believe the rogue coastguards had rammed the boat, robbed the men and killed them. An investigation by the Maritime Administra-tion Department had found blue paint on the green coastguard 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 coastguard 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 Coastguard boat was in the river at the same time as the boat the trio was in. The blue paint samples from the Coastguard boat were handed over to the police for testing.
Up to now, there has been no word on the tests, Rahaman said. Suspicions that the Coastguard ranks were involved were heightened after three Coastguard ranks were charged with killing Bartica gold dealer, Dweive Kant Ramdass in the Essequibo River. Relatives have also pointed to the fact that the other boat involved in the incident did not contact the authorities following the incident. Suspicious too was the fact that items Dinanauth had on his person were missing though his licensed firearm was left in his pocket.
He had just returned from the interior, where he mined and reportedly had some raw gold on his person along with over $500,000 and a gold watch, all of which was missing when his body was found. He also had a bag that has not been found.
The autopsy results had shown that both men had died of asphyxiation due to drowning but that there was also blunt trauma to the head, chest and stomach. It was postulated that the men could have been beaten and their heads held under water. This also seemed likely as the bodies were found in the shattered boat and not in the water.
Rahaman said that she hopes that one day, the truth will come to light and justice will be done. “No help, no justice but I believe in God and one day he will tell me the truth,” she said.
