Doctor, fiancée missing

Jan 05, 2009 News

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– car found at seawall

Police are investigating the disappearance of a young doctor and his girlfriend.
Twenty-seven-year-old Dr. Samsundar Lakeram, called Sarwan, who is attached to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation, and his 25-year-old fiancée, Radica Devi Dwarka, a clerk at the same medical institution, were supposed to have returned to their respective homes on Saturday evening, but never did.
The car they were using was found abandoned yesterday morning on the Georgetown seawall, a few yards from the headquarters of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Eve Leary.

The clothes the two missing persons were wearing were discovered in the abandoned vehicle.
The couple’s cash and other important documents were missing from the vehicle.
Detectives believe that whoever is responsible for the couple’s disappearance abducted them, stripped them of their clothing, and then took their vehicle to the Eve Leary seawall, where they abandoned it to throw investigators off track.
It is believed that the couple was abducted sometime after midday on Saturday, but up to late yesterday afternoon, family members had received no call for ransom.
They claimed that it is very unlikely that the couple would have disappeared without informing relatives, since the two were scheduled to be married soon.
They also dismissed suggestions that the couple might have gone into the Atlantic Ocean for a dip, since, according to relatives, neither of them could swim, nor would they undress at that location during the day.
According to sources, the couple’s car was seen parked on the seawall near the CID headquarters since at about 18:00 hours on Saturday.
Yesterday, several relatives from both families launched a search for the missing couple, combing the entire seawall area from Kitty to Kingston without success.

Speaking with this newspaper yesterday, the missing woman’s mother, Whelema Dwarka, said that her daughter, who resides with her at Mon Repos, East Coast Demerara, was picked up by her fiancé to go to the city.
“He pick she up at about 10 o’clock. She said that they were going to buy a cell phone and fix a laptop computer,” Dwarka said.
She added that when her daughter left the house she had $30,000 on her person, but there was no trace of the cash, although the missing girl’s purse was found in the abandoned car. Neither was there any sign of the laptop computer or the cellular phone they had supposedly purchased.
Dwarka said that her daughter’s bank cards are also missing.
“She was going to give me the money, but I told her to keep it and give it to me later,” the woman said.
The doctor’s relatives also informed that he, too, had left his home at Non Pareil, East Coast Demerara, with a quantity of cash, which is also missing from the items recovered.
He is the second son of a prominent hardware store owner.
Whelema Dwarka said that her daughter, a former employee of this newspaper, would normally return home at about 20:00 hours whenever she went out with her boyfriend.
However, when she failed to show up on Saturday night, her mother became worried and contacted her boyfriend’s parents to ascertain if they knew of the couple’s whereabouts.
But none of the family members had a clue as to where the couple was.
Calls were made to their cellular phones, but no one answered.
According to Dwarka, yesterday morning, the doctor’s father and other family members picked her and her husband up and took them to the city to carry out searches for the couple.
They eventually stumbled upon the car on the seawall, and immediately alerted the police.
Investigators found no signs of a struggle, since the couple’s clothes were intact and there were no visible signs of blood.
“We believe that they were ordered to strip so as to make it more difficult for them to escape from their abductors,” a police source told this newspaper.
Shortly after the investigations commenced, as senior detectives converged at the CID Headquarters, it was reported that the doctor’s father had been informed by telephone that the couple was being held in a hut.
“But by the time he go to ask where, the phone went dead,” a relative said.
By afternoon yesterday, the search had been extended to other parts of the city, and had even moved to the East Bank of Demerara.
But there was still no trace of the couple.
“There is no reason for them to just disappear so. They had an open relationship. He visited her home freely, and she visited his house freely. They were planning their wedding,” a family member told this newspaper.
Meanwhile, a source at Police Headquarters, Eve Leary, told this newspaper that he had passed the couple’s car on the seawall late Saturday evening.
He said that, at the time, a man was seen near the car and he later entered a green and white route 44 RZ minibus which was parked behind the abandoned car.
“The mini-bus pull off suddenly, and I had to swerve from them. But at the time I did not know that the car had been abandoned, or that it would have been the subject of an investigation,” the source said.
This newspaper was informed by the missing woman’s sister that a call was made to the doctor’s cell phone yesterday, but although the call was acknowledged, no one answered.
Another call was made a few minutes later, but by then the phone had been turned off.

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