(Trinidad Express) An Arima family has issued an urgent appeal to find 22-year-old Andrea Bharatt who vanished after entering a taxi near her workplace on Friday afternoon.
A person who answered her phone hours after her disappearance told her father that the woman’s ears would be cut and sent to the family, if a ransom was not paid.
As of 1.30p.m. yesterday, there had been no further contact.
Bharatt, who lives with her father along the Arima Old Road, is employed as a clerk at the Arima Magistrates Court.
Relatives were told that the woman walked out with a co-worker and entered a taxi to go home at around 5pm.
The co-worker was dropped off a short distance away.
Bharatt has not been seen since.
Her aunt, Wendy Williams, said her niece would never leave home without informing her father. And the family was convinced that Bharatt has been abducted.
“Her mother died eight years ago and she lives with her father. I am her second mother. She calls me every day and we talk. So when she didn’t call me yesterday my mother called her phone,” she said.
But what the family heard on the other side confirmed their fears.
“A man answered and my mother asked for Andrea. He said she was not around and hang up the phone. My mother got scared and told me to call. I called the number and the same man answered. I asked for my child and he said she is not around. I demanded to know who he was. He said ‘this is Jesus’ and he hang up,” she cried.
Williams said her niece had no reason to leave her home. She has a good life and a lot of love around her, she said.
“This is not a case of a runaway girl. This is a serious thing. She has been on rotation since Covid-19, so some days she is at home and some days she has to go to the court. I spoke to my niece on Thursday and she was laughing and talking like normal,” she said.
A report was filed at the Arima police station.
Williams said Bharatt’s father, Randy, was devastated and is praying for his child to return home.
And to the man who answered Bharatt’s phone, Williams said, “Let my child go. Let my child come home. I am begging you. Don’t hurt her.”
