(Trinidad Express) The family of missing Moruga farmer Sanjay Deodath has offered a reward of $20,000 to anyone with information that will lead to his safe return.
Deodath, also known as “Naren”, of Douglas Road, St Mary’s, has been missing since Tuesday night.
In a telephone interview yesterday, his father, Kishore, 59, said the family is distraught over the disappearance of his son, and wants to see him return “alive and safe”.
“On Thursday, we put out a reward but nobody has called as yet. I would like to say that if anybody knows where my son Sanjay is, if you could please say something. We will give you a reward if we find him alive and safe. You will get $20,000,” said the father.
Kishore said the family is troubled by the fact that on the night his son went missing, he visited the residence of couple Nigel Chance and Surita Deosaran, who were gunned down the next day.
He said his son visited them that night for less than five minutes.
“We are thinking all kinds of things. We are not hearing anything from him so something must be wrong. He did not know them too long. It is only about six months that he went St Mary’s to live,” said Kishore.
The bodies of Chance and Deosaran were found riddled with bullets in their home in Moruga Road, St Mary’s Village, after they were killed by gunmen around 4.40 p.m. on Wednesday.
The couple was ambushed while on the ground floor of their home by occupants of a white AD wagon that drove into the yard.
After rapid gunfire rang out, the vehicle drove out of the yard and sped off onto Moruga Road.
The AD wagon was found by police hours later, abandoned in a street in the community.
Police are not yet certain of the motive for the double homicide.
Kishore said he was told that his son had told them he was going to collect money from someone for the sale of his watermelon crop.
“He passed in by them (Chance and Deosaran) for less than five minutes. I do not know what he passed there for, I cannot say. That was around 8 o’clock. He told the guy that he was going to collect some money from some people for the watermelon. That was it, he never reached home,” said Kishore.
The father said he last saw his son on Tuesday around 5.30 when he was at his garden in La Fortune Trace, Moruga, where he planted watermelon, pumpkin and cucumbers.
He added that security camera footage in Saunders Trace picked up his son’s white Isuzu three-tonne truck driving in the street around 9 p.m. on Tuesday.
The footage also showed that a Nissan Tiida followed the truck.
More than an hour later, the truck was seen exiting the road and a Nissan AD wagon was driving in front of it.
However, Deodath never made it home.
The father said: “We do not have any enemies with anybody. He did not have any threats. He just had two traffic tickets, and he paid one and has one more to pay. My wife is not doing well at all. Plenty people are praying. The Hunters Association and police have been coming out every day since he went missing.”
Since Wednesday, family members and friends, police officers, together with members of the Hunters Search and Rescue Team (HSRT), Top Gunz Hunting Club and Collin’s Full Throttle Outdoor Club conducted searches on the roads and forested areas in Saunders Trace, Moruga, and yesterday, the searches extended to Catshill.
Anyone with information can contact the TTPS emergency numbers 555, 911, 999, or send the information to the TTPS app, or contact the family at 267-4736.
