Student teacher was likely kidnapped then murdered

The 22-year-old student teacher, whose stabbed body was discovered on Back Street, Harlem, West Coast Demerara, was likely kidnapped, her mother said yesterday, lamenting that the police failed to act when the first report was made.

Luciana Bhagwandin had also been threatened by a man whose advances she had rejected, according to her mother.

“She de tell me that a guy who like she threaten she and that he would nah leave she alone,” Bhagwandin’s mother, who did not want her name published, told Stabroek News from her Pomona, Essequibo Coast home.

The grieving mother was very upset with police officers at the Turkeyen Police Outpost as they had reportedly told relatives of the young woman to return to the station in 48 hours to report her missing. “Dem tell dem that even though dem tell dem that she get pull in de car,” the mother lamented. “My daughter foot bin a hang out a de car when it drive away. Dat is not missing. Dat a kidnap and dem shoulda send a all point bulletin to all dem stations and me daughter coulda be alive today.”

The mother said she was told that as her daughter was making her way back to her relative’s Turkeyen home in company of a younger female cousin, a blue car stopped and a man dragged her in. She said the cousin did not know the man.

“But dem police coulda act on de report. Dat was not a missing person report,” she stressed. She said that according to reports, her daughter was later transferred to a burgundy car and taken to Harlem where she was killed.

“I don’t want to say much because the police have to do dey work, but the media must help catch me daughter murderer,” the woman said as she wept. “Me daughter don’t deserve such a death, a cruel death.”

Bhagwandin’s body was discovered on Sunday morning but it was only on Tuesday that it was identified by her parents.

Bhagwandin had been living with a relative in the Turkeyen area for a week before she went missing last Saturday afternoon after she left home to go to a supermarket. It was while returning from the supermarket that she was reportedly forced into the car.

The mother said that her daughter had been married for five years but about a month ago she separated from her husband. She said she had been living with her husband in Cummings Lodge before moving in with the relative. The husband is also from Essequibo but works in the city. Bhagwandin was a first-year student at the Cyril Potter College of Education.

“She always want to be a teacher and after five years of marriage she decide to go and become a teacher because dat was her dream,” her mother said.

“Me a she mother suh me nah go say nothing bad ‘bout she, but you could come and talk to people in de neighbourhood,” she added. “She was a good girl and she come from a religious background.”

She appealed for justice for her only daughter and said she hopes the killer is arrested very soon.

The police said in a release yesterday that a post-mortem examination performed on Bhagwandin’s body by Dr Nehaul Singh found that the cause of death was haemorrhage and shock due to stab wounds.

Meanwhile, it is not clear if the taxi driver who was arrested on Sunday morning in connection with the murder is still in police custody. He was arrested after he had reported that his car had been hijacked and it was subsequently found abandoned not far from the area where the woman’s body was discovered.

Harlem residents had told Stabroek News on Sunday that there was an incident involving the taxi driver which occurred that morning and might be related to the discovery.

They said the taxi driver had informed his relatives that he was robbed and his vehicle was hijacked in the early hours of Sunday morning and he had arrived home intoxicated with his clothes muddied.

His car was found abandoned at Canal Number Two and residents there contacted the taxi service base.