(Trinidad Express) The nation may have forgotten about missing part-time taxi driver and sanitation worker Anil Maraj, who disappeared on March 17. But for his children, the heartache remains real every waking moment.
Josh Maraj, his 21-year-old son, has been fighting a lonely battle to gather information on his missing father.
He has been canvassing the streets, taxi stands and shopping areas where his father was last seen. He has led searches into forested areas and dangerous parts of Trinidad and Tobago. And he has held multiple candlelight vigils, praying to be reunited with his father.
In his latest social media post, Josh wrote, “Daddy, I as your son will look and look until I find you…no one will know your children pain. We cry in silence…I will never give up hope on finding you. It’s getting harder each day not knowing why you were abducted….but there is a God and I know he’s with you. We are hurting soo much words can’t describe. Every time we eat, try to get a rest…..we think about you and the conditions you are under. You love your bed, home cook meal. We will look until we find you daddy.”
Josh continued, “Others may go on with life…some may forget. As long as I live I will never give up…no way I giving up…..this hurt will always be with me. I’m trying my best but with each day its hurts way more.”
And he asked that those holding his father allow him to see the post. “Please show my father everything I post. Let him know his children do love him and were keeping faith we will see him,” he wrote.
In an interview with the Express on Wednesday, Josh said he had no leads but will not be disheartened. He said the search continued and he would not give up hope that his father was still alive.
Josh asked that his father’s captors find it in their heart to listen to the pleas of his children.
Maraj, 40, worked at the Siparia Regional Corpora-tion as well as a taxi-driver, to make ends meet for his five children.
Josh has also made an appeal to anyone who may have seen or heard something to come forward.
“He cannot just disappear. Someone may have seen him or heard something. Please, let us know. We want to know the motive behind them having him. If it is money, if he went on a job and he was owing money or something like that so we can know. We are asking them what it is. The family is willing to negotiate with them,” he said.
Josh said his father was not involved in criminal activities and had no known enemies.
Maraj left his Arena Village home in his white Nissan Tiida (PCU 602) on the morning of March 17.
He told relatives he was expecting a call for a hired transportation job but did not say with whom or where he was going.
Relatives speculated that Maraj had made one final trip from Siparia to Santa Flora before his disappearance.
Josh told the Express they had spoken with Maraj’s last-known passenger who was seen being dropped off in Santa Flora on that day. The passenger told relatives that Maraj had indicated that he was returning home to, “take a rest”.
But Maraj never made it back home.
Relatives believed Maraj may have been robbed and that there was more to the story that had not yet been uncovered.
But both family members and police have reached a dead end in investigations.
Josh said although his parents were separated they cared for their five children together.
Maraj’s disappearance is being investigated by the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service’s Anti Kidnapping Squad.