Mom rescued after alleged months of captivity by Penal woman

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

A late-night po­lice op­er­a­tion led to the ar­rest of a woman and her teenage son af­ter they al­leged­ly kept Sabi­ta Bas­deo, a moth­er of two, against her will for months, beat­ing her and threat­en­ing to kill her when­ev­er she tried to leave to see her fam­i­ly.

Bas­deo, vis­i­bly bruised and shak­en, broke free and ran to Cpl Lee Lum and PC Ram­sar­ran short­ly af­ter ar­riv­ing at the Bar­rack­pore Po­lice Sta­tion with the two sus­pects on Sat­ur­day night, bring­ing an end to what in­ves­ti­ga­tors de­scribed as a case of false im­pris­on­ment and mod­ern-day slav­ery.

Po­lice said Bas­deo had in­juries to her face and hands. When ques­tioned, she told of­fi­cers the wounds had been in­flict­ed by the two in­di­vid­u­als who ac­com­pa­nied her.

She told of­fi­cers that be­tween Sep­tem­ber 2025 and April 2026, she was forced to per­form do­mes­tic du­ties while be­ing pre­vent­ed from leav­ing. Dur­ing that pe­ri­od, she al­leged she was beat­en, had her head slammed against a wall, was burned about the body and sub­ject­ed to oth­er forms of abuse, in­clud­ing threats that she would be killed if she tried to es­cape.

The res­cue fol­lowed a chain of events trig­gered by Vice Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Red Cross So­ci­ety, Ed­ward Mood­ie, who said he be­came aware of Bas­deo’s sit­u­a­tion af­ter see­ing her in a vi­ral video cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia.

The video al­so showed an­oth­er in­ci­dent in­volv­ing an el­der­ly man who had al­so been beat­en by the sus­pects.

Mood­ie said he lat­er con­tact­ed Bas­deo’s fam­i­ly and met with her hus­band and two sons. One of her sons said that when he pre­vi­ous­ly tried to vis­it his moth­er, he was as­sault­ed and chased away.

“My moth­er has been there for years now,” the teenag­er said. “They promised her a job, but when she went, they kept her there and nev­er want­ed to send her back home.”

The boy added that he and his sib­ling were beat­en when they at­tempt­ed to see their moth­er and claimed the sus­pects threat­ened to harm her if she tried to leave.

“I feel sad… I miss my moth­er,” he said.

Up­on re­ceiv­ing the in­for­ma­tion, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro mo­bilised a team of of­fi­cers, in­clud­ing mem­bers of the Bar­rack­pore Po­lice Sta­tion and the South­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force, to lo­cate Bas­deo. Search­es were car­ried out at sev­er­al lo­ca­tions, but she was not found at the time.

Hours lat­er, in an un­ex­pect­ed turn, the woman and her son walked in­to the po­lice sta­tion with Bas­deo be­tween them. As of­fi­cers ap­proached, Bas­deo broke free and sought help.

The sus­pects were im­me­di­ate­ly de­tained, cau­tioned and in­formed of their rights.

Gue­var­ro praised the role of pub­lic co­op­er­a­tion in the res­cue.

“I am thank­ful for the per­son who brought this to my at­ten­tion… The na­tion can use this as an­oth­er ex­am­ple of how cit­i­zens and po­lice can work to­geth­er,” he said.

Bas­deo was tak­en for med­ical treat­ment by WPC James-Ra­goo­nanan and lat­er re­ferred for fur­ther ex­am­i­na­tion. She has al­so been of­fered sup­port through the Vic­tim and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit.

State­ments have been record­ed from her rel­a­tives as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue.

Sev­er­al charges, in­clud­ing false im­pris­on­ment, are ex­pect­ed to be laid.