Cops widen Sabita probe

News Desk

As in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue in­to the fire­bomb­ing of a home in Pe­nal linked to the al­leged false im­pris­on­ment of Sabi­ta Bas­deo, po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tors yes­ter­day con­firmed they were widen­ing their probe in­to a crim­i­nal net­work op­er­at­ing in South Trinidad.

Po­lice sources said yes­ter­day that the probe was at a sen­si­tive stage. They were there­fore un­able to re­lease any de­tails at this stage.

How­ev­er, the sus­pect­ed ar­son and fire­bomb­ing of the house at De­osaran Trace, San Fran­cique, has al­so in­ten­si­fied con­cerns by Bas­deo’s fam­i­ly and oth­ers in the com­mu­ni­ty about the safe­ty of wit­ness­es and the han­dling of the high-pro­file case.

Fire­fight­ers re­spond­ed short­ly af­ter 6 am yes­ter­day to a blaze at a three-bed­room con­crete house along De­osaran Trace, San Fran­cique. The prop­er­ty was un­oc­cu­pied at the time.

Fire pre­ven­tion of­fi­cers found a bro­ken bed­room win­dow from which they be­lieve a Molo­tov cock­tail was al­leged­ly thrown, ig­nit­ing the blaze. While the struc­ture re­mained stand­ing, sev­er­al rooms, in­clud­ing a bed­room at the back of the house, were gut­ted.

Fire of­fi­cers from the Pe­nal Fire Sta­tion man­aged to con­tain the flames be­fore they could spread to the rest of the house.

The de­vel­op­ment has height­ened con­cerns over the Bas­deo case, with re­newed calls for po­lice ac­count­abil­i­ty and pro­tec­tion for the vic­tim and her fam­i­ly.

Po­lice had pre­vi­ous­ly been urged to con­duct search­es at the De­osaran Trace res­i­dence and a near­by prop­er­ty linked to the sus­pects, against a back­drop of un­ver­i­fied al­le­ga­tions cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia.

So­cial me­dia per­son­al­i­ty Vicky Ram­per­sad has since joined calls for ur­gent in­ter­ven­tion, urg­ing the au­thor­i­ties to en­sure the safe­ty of Bas­deo and her rel­a­tives. Ram­per­sad, who is cur­rent­ly abroad, echoed con­cerns raised by the vice-pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Red Cross So­ci­ety, Ed­ward Mood­ie, who has been ad­vo­cat­ing for the fam­i­ly’s pro­tec­tion.

She al­so ap­pealed to mem­bers of the pub­lic to re­spect the fam­i­ly’s pri­va­cy, warn­ing that con­tin­ued at­ten­tion could place them at fur­ther risk.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro has launched a for­mal in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the case. Pri­or to the fire yes­ter­day, of­fi­cers had con­duct­ed search­es at sev­er­al lo­ca­tions linked to the sus­pects in the Bar­rack­pore area.

In an ear­li­er state­ment, Gue­var­ro said the case has raised se­ri­ous con­cerns about the con­duct of po­lice of­fi­cers and the lev­el of ser­vice pro­vid­ed to the pub­lic. He warned that any wrong­do­ing or fail­ure to act would not be tol­er­at­ed and that those re­spon­si­ble would be held ful­ly ac­count­able.

He al­so re­mind­ed the pub­lic of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s “one-door pol­i­cy,” which re­quires all re­ports made at any po­lice sta­tion to be for­mal­ly re­ceived and doc­u­ment­ed, stress­ing that no cit­i­zen should be turned away. Mem­bers of the pub­lic were ad­vised to note of­fi­cers’ names and badge num­bers and re­port any mis­con­duct to over­sight bod­ies, in­clud­ing the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty.

On Tues­day, the CoP al­so urged mem­bers of the pub­lic to come for­ward with any in­for­ma­tion they may have on the case.

Be­fore the ar­rest of a woman and a teenage male rel­a­tive, Bas­deo’s fam­i­ly said they had made re­peat­ed at­tempts to get help from the po­lice. Bas­deo had al­leged­ly been lured to leave her home with the promise of a job as a maid and then kept against her will, where she re­port­ed­ly en­dured abuse.

Rel­a­tives said her hus­band and two sons were beat­en and chased when they at­tempt­ed to vis­it and res­cue her. In a sep­a­rate in­ci­dent in 2022, a po­lice of­fi­cer re­lat­ed to Bas­deo was al­so re­port­ed­ly at­tacked, lead­ing to a ma­li­cious dam­age re­port.

Bas­deo was even­tu­al­ly freed last Sat­ur­day af­ter CoP Gue­var­ro or­dered an in­ves­ti­ga­tion based on con­fi­den­tial in­for­ma­tion.

The woman and the teenag­er re­main in po­lice cus­tody in con­nec­tion with the al­leged false im­pris­on­ment.

No charges have yet been laid as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue.