By Jeune Bailey Van Keric
WOMAN Police Constable, Tatyanna Aaliyah Blair-Da Silva was brought up as a child to be honest and contented. Those qualities followed her into her adult life, causing her to return the contents of a black ‘laptop bag’ belonging to an overseas-based Guyanese, Sheik Ali.
In his message to Divisional Commander, Senior Superintendent Jairam Ramlakhan, Ali said, “I want to let you know of the honesty of one your ranks.”
“A week ago, I was in Fyrish Village conducting business. I lost a bag containing US$3,000, G$300,000, and I Phone, an identification card and a passport…. It was returned. I offered a reward but she refused, saying she was not brought up that way,” Ali related.
During an interview with the Guyana Chronicle at Divisional Headquarters on Wednesday, the soft spoken Blair-Da Silva, said she had left her Fyrish home on Friday just after 21:00 hours to go to the village shop to purchase a pack of ‘Ramein’.
“About 15 to 20 feet from the Fyrish bus shed, I observed a black computer bag, I opened it and saw a quantity of United States and Guyana currency. I looked for a form of identification. After waiting for a while for the owner to return to the area and recover the items, I took a photograph of the identification card and posted it to my Facebook page, along with my cellphone number. About an hour later, the man’s son called, saying it was his father. The owner of the bag then contacted me before reaching me at the bus shed. He checked the bag and was surprised and shocked as he did not believe that members of the Guyana Police Force had such integrity,” the 22-year-old cop related.
According to Blair-Da Silva, it was not the first time she found large sums of money. On another occasion, she had sent a photograph of the person’s identification card to ‘BIG SMITH’, who posted it to his page. She later learnt that the money found was for the owner’s daughter’s surgery.
“I grew up in a single parent home with my mother and two siblings. My mother would always tell us, ‘na want wa you mattie get .Wuk fo you own’.” The married mother of one, who is also a former national athlete, has lived up to that advice.
