Furious that his common-law wife Zaheeda Mohammed was herded like an animal through their community by a Gasparillo farmer, Kimchan Mohammed says he is now contemplating legal action. Days after a video posted on Facebook by Moruga contractor Charman Lal showed farmer Sunil Ramcharan leading Mohammed through Massy Lands with a rope tied around her waist, Jordan said Ramcharan had to pay for taking advantage of his wife.
“He is wrong to come in my house, tie up my girl and carry her away because she does not know anything about that (theft of peppers),” he said at his Reform Village home yesterday. When the T&T Guardian visited 31-year-old Jordan, he said his wife was taken to the Gasparillo Police Station by her mother and was spending time in Penal. He admitted to stealing a crocus bag of peppers from one of Ramcharan’s fields last month but said the court had fined him $2,500 for the offence.
The coconut picker said when he returned home from work on Saturday, Mohammed told him that Ramcharan allegedly came to the house with a cutlass, tied her up and took her to his field where he made her eat a pepper. “I heard the man came over here and chopped up my house. If you look inside you will see the marks. “She said his van was stuck in front the yard so he tied her up and took her to the pepper field and told police he caught her there. Police met her walking out of Massy Lands,” Jordan said.
Asked why he stole the peppers, he said it was to be sold so he could get money to buy groceries. “When you can’t get work what else you would do?” he asked. Ramcharan was not at his Rahaman Drive, Gasparillo, home when the T&T Guardian visited yesterday but his brother, Sham, said the frustration of being robbed by the couple repeatedly had led to the incident.
Sham said his brother gave a statement to the police yesterday. He claimed both Mohammed and Jordan were caught many times stealing their produce and on Saturday they were caught again stealing peppers. “He (Ramcharan) said he did not hit her or molest her. He just did that to frighten and to embarrass her a bit, hoping that it would change her way of life,” Sham said.
He claimed other farms had similar complaints against Mohammed, adding it was frustrating to be robbed because his brother had an Agricultural Development Bank loan to pay off but was losing income from theft. In an effort to stop the robbery, he said they even offered the couple jobs.
‘victim uncooperative’
In a media release yesterday, the T&T Police Service said contrary to initial reports, they did respond to a report that a woman was being drawn by a rope tied around her waist by a man along a roadway at Massy Lands, Gasparillo. Mohammed was interviewed at the scene by PC Marlon Stoute who told him she did not want any action taken against Ramcharan and she preferred he be warned. She explained the man, whom she knew, had apologised to her, the release said.
It added that police found Mohammed unco-operative and unwilling to be interviewed or give a statement and also refused to accompany officers to the station. The charges that could have laid included assault, unlawful detention and kidnapping, the release said. Jordan said yesterday he did not know why Mohammed did not co-operate with police but would speak to her in the hope she would reconsider her options.