By Rabindra Rooplall

SHARADANANDA Narine, called Anand, and his alleged accomplice, Darel Pronton, called ‘Yankee’, are expected to be charged with the murder of Babita Sarjou.

Skeletal remains of a person believed to be Sarjou were discovered by police Sunday in a shallow grave behind her estranged husband’s Lot 51 Seaforth Street, Campbellville, Georgetown property almost six years after she had mysteriously gone missing.

On November 4, 2010, Sarjou, 28, left home after telling her mother, Champa Seonarine, that she would be meeting with her estranged husband and four-year-old son at the Kitty Seawall to view the annual Diwali motorcade. That same night she was expected to return to her mother’s Timehri home but she was never seen again.

Police Monday obtained a High Court order to detain the suspects for another 72 hours. While DNA samples were taken from the remains to confirm identity, relatives of Sarjou have already identified a pair of shoes and parts of the attire found with the skeleton as belonging to Sarjou. The duo Sunday led detectives to the spot, located behind a zinc fence on the property.

Police there dug up a skull, bones and pieces of clothing.

Police disclosed that Sarjou’s husband has stated that he was furious because he suspected that she was having an affair with a man at her workplace. He was also angry that she had taken him to court on allegations that he had posted up nude pictures of her.

It is alleged that he hired the unemployed Pronton, whom he had befriended, to kill Sarjou. Pronton was allegedly paid $50,000 and promised a trip to Trinidad. The trip to Trinidad never materialised.

It was reported that unknown to Sarjou, Narine and Pronton had already dug her grave in Narine’s Seaforth Street backyard, two days before. Sarjou reportedly met her husband outside the National Cultural Centre and entered his car. It is around this same area that Pronton, who was allegedly sitting in the back seat, strangled Sarjou. They then carried the body to Narine’s Seaforth Street residence where they placed it in a shallow grave.

In an interview with the Guyana Chronicle, Champa Seonarine said all her suspicions were on spot as she had a gut feeling that her daughter was buried inside the yard.

“Since Babita go missing I keep talking this thing, this is not the way Babita should have been gone. Anand got buildings in there which he was renting, and he had my daughter washing loads of bed sheets and he asked her not to even break a voice to the girls that were in the apartments,” a tearful Seonarine said. She said that once Anand is found guilty, he should be hanged.

Meanwhile, Mrs Seonarine praised the detectives and the Police Force, especially Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum, who she noted was the real force behind the investigations.

On the fateful night that Babita Sarjoo disappeared, family members attempted to contact her on her two mobile phones but they appeared to have been turned off.

Mrs Seonarine said she first informed ranks at the Timehri Police Station about her daughter’s disappearance, then made a similar report at the Kitty Police Station.

Before she disappeared Sarjou had filed a harassment case against her husband, but the matter was subsequently dismissed. Her husband was accused of plastering copies of a nude picture of Sarjou, who had been missing since the night before Diwali, on the fence of her workplace at BK International.

The couple had separated at the time and according to her mother, it was the fourth time Sarjou 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 Sarjou was told that if she wanted to file for custody of her son, she had to empower herself by being gainfully employed. It was this that drove her to find a job and for the months she worked at the company she was described as a hard worker.

Instead of being embarrassed and cowed into silence, Babita reported the matter of the nude pictures displayed to the police, and charges were instituted against Narine.

The day Babita disappeared would have been three months since the nude printouts were plastered outside her workplace.

Earlier in the month, Police Commissioner Seelall Persaud and Crime Chief Blanhum met with Champa Seonarine, and formally notified her that police had re-opened investigations into her daughter’s disappearance.

The Caribbean American Domestic Awareness Organisation (CADVA), a human rights body, has been pressing the police to have the Sarjou case reopened.

Chief Operations Officer, Dianne Madray had criticised the police for the investigation they had conducted into Sarjou’s fate. “Every little clue they get, the organisation would forward the information to the police,” she said. “When she disappeared, we gave her phone to the police, where she was threatened. We showed them Facebook messages, but none of those things can be found now,” the woman said.

Madray said that CADVA had appealed to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Shalimar Ali-Hack for assistance. Madray also said she had sent a letter to Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan and on March 29 last, she received a response.

Sunday Madray and a tearful Mrs Seonarine stood on the roadway looking into the yard where the remains, believed to be that of Babita were found. In tears, she loudly declared in the direction of Narine’s house, sending a message to his present wife, that nothing good will come of their relationship since only an ill-fate lies ahead for him.