On the eve of Diwali, Babita Sarjou, 28, got up as usual and dressed for work. Before she left, she invited both her mother and sister to accompany her to view the motorcade that night but they declined. “Suh she turn and tell me that she going with [her estranged husband] Anand and she son to see the light up and that she come home about nine in the night,” a tearful Champa Seonaraine said. “Dah sound like somebody who going away?”
The young mother has not been seen since November 4, after clocking out her time at BK International. Her mother believes that foul play is involved in her disappearance but is hoping that she is still alive and is being held against her will.
Seonarine said her son-in-law,
who has custody of the four-year-old son he fathered with Babita, lives a short distance from where the motorcade usually moves off and it was in that general area her daughter was expected to be before returning home.
When Babita did not show up that night, her mother initially thought she might have spent the night with her son and his father, even though the couple has been separated for a year. “But is the morning he sent my granddaughter a text saying ‘Hi, happy Diwali to you and your family. When you see Babita tell her to call, her son would like to speak to her and she is not answering her phone.’ Right away I said something was wrong and I went and report her missing at the Timehri Police Station,” Seonarine said.
She pointed out that the family was not on speaking terms with the man so she found it strange that he wanted to wish them a happy Diwali.
The mother said she went and reported her daughter’s disappearance to the Kitty Police Station and was shocked when she was told by two female officers that the man had gone to the station the night before and made a report. “When I reporting the two of them look at each other and one a dem tell me how Anand went and report the night before that Babita was to come and see the light up with them and she ent turn up and he come to clear he side,” Seonarine said.
She added that she immediately fired off questions to the officers, including asking what gave her son-in-law the right to report the young woman missing.
She pointed out that even if Babita did not turn up to view the motorcade, her husband could not just assume that she was missing and make a report to the station without even contacting her family to ascertain whether she had changed her mind and went home instead. However, Seonarine said she was even more shocked when she returned to the station the following day to give a detailed statement, including what she was told about the man making a report, when one of the officers told her she misunderstand her and that the husband had made no such report. “I can have a confrontation with them anywhere, I am not mad I know what she tell me and I would maintain that she tell me this. Something fishy happen. Why dem don’t want say he mek the report?”
Nude pictures
Meanwhile, Seonarine is afraid that with Babita missing, a complaint against her husband, who is accused to distributing nude photographs of her without her permission, would be dismissed in the courts. She told Stabroek News that the matter was called on November 23 and was put down for December 31.
She is hoping that even if her daughter does not turn up in court, other witnesses will testify.
In August, after Babita got hired at BK International, employees arrived at work to find printouts of a nude photograph of the young woman pasted on the fence and on trucks belonging to the company.
Some workers tore down the photographs in an effort to shield the young woman from embarrassment.
According to Seonarine, it was the fourth time Babita had left her husband and she had vowed not to return even though he was keeping her son away from her. The couple was being counseled at the Ministry of Human Services and Babita was told if she wanted to file for custody for her son she had to empower herself by being gainfully employed. It was this that drove her into finding a job and for the months she worked at the company she was described as a hard worker.
Her mother feels that it was her determination not to return to an abusive union that may have prompted her estranged husband to allegedly plaster the print outs of the photograph.
However, instead of being embarrassed and cowed into silence, Babita reported the matter to the police, leading to them instituting charges against the man.
The day Babita disappeared would have been three months since the nude print outs were plastered outside her work place. Seonarine said Babita never missed a day of work.
“She get up everyday and went to work. She didn’t feel no embarrassed. She didn’t do nothing wrong. It is he who do something wrong to her,” she stressed. She said the man has since told another of her daughters that Babita “gone with she man.” However, Seonarine said her daughter’s passport and other documents are still at home along with almost $100,000 that was found among her possessions.
Her wedding band and engagement ring were also found with other jewellery. “She didn’t plan to go away and I want me daughter come home… I just want she come back,” the tearful mother pleaded.
She revealed that it was she who had encouraged her daughter to return to her husband on the three previous occasions when she left but when the young woman said she was not returning the fourth time she supported her and opened her doors to her.
The woman’s estranged husband was arrested following her disappearance but he was subsequently released.
