THE body of an individual who washed-up on the shores of Trinidad and Tobago (TT) over the weekend is not missing fisherman Samuel Dabideen or his 23-year-old son Arjohn Persaud.Police investigations intensified last weekend over the missing fisherman.

Omadatt Basdeo and Mahesh Singh returned alive from the fishing expedition without Dabideen and Persaud. The survivors have been blaming each other for the tragedy. The men are from De Willem, West Coast Demerara.

Relatives of the missing men told the Guyana Chronicle on Monday that the owner of the vessel from which the man and his son disappeared visited the morgue in Trinidad to examine the body of a man found there over the weekend but the identity did not match Dabideen or his son.

Basdeo, 32, called “Budha” lives on West Coast Demerara while Singh, 35, lives at Cummings Lodge, East Coast Demerara.

Basdeo on Sunday gave police a statement in which he blamed Singh for the disappearance of the father and son, but Singh is reportedly not accepting blame and is saying that Basdeo should examine himself.

Reports are that the men left on the fishing expedition from the shores of Ruby, East Bank Essequibo on September 27, 2016. Relatives were told that the captain and his son went missing on September 29, but they received the information from the owner of the vessel only on October 4, Tuesday last.
Relatives said they were told that once on the high seas, Singh was left on the larger vessel to overlook the three men, who ventured out in a smaller boat with a 1,000-pound seine to catch fish. Singh eventually lost sight of the men, and decided to search the waters with the vessel. He gave up the search two days after the men went missing, and decided to return to Guyana, where the owner of the vessel was contacted and told what had occurred.

Basdeo claimed that the boat he and the two others were in capsized and he swam three miles before reaching the shores of Trinidad, where he sought the assistance of the police and coast guard there.

Relatives say they have obtained a letter from the Ministry of Public Security to send to Trinidad to assist with the search for the missing men.