Kidnap victim says captors promised to burn him alive
-suffered 'inhumane torture'
By Gitanjali Singh
Stabroek News
March 11, 2003
Chamber of Commerce executive, Dev Sharma, says taking destiny in his own hands was what saved his life from his captors in Buxton last Thursday.
"Had I done otherwise, I would have been dead despite whatever ransom my family might have paid," Sharma told Stabroek News yesterday from an undisclosed overseas location.
Sharma, who is not yet prepared to disclose fully the circumstances of his kidnapping or his escape, said he was subjected to "inhumane torture" at the hands of his captors.
"You have absolutely no idea of the kind of inhumane torture I was subjected to," he said, outlining his injuries as multiple, facial and body burns from cigarette butts and lighters; gun butt lashes to the head causing profuse blood loss; a fractured rib and numerous cuffs and kicks to his head and body.
"The next day, they promised that they would have dug out my eyes and set me alight. They showed me a bottle of gasoline, which was there for this purpose. I had no reason to doubt them since they repeated these sentiments even while I was feigning unconsciousness," Sharma said. His torture began when he refused to beg for his life.
However, Sharma said that regardless how animalistic or brutal criminals were they could be defeated once individuals were prepared to take their destinies into their own hands and stop whining and blaming the police or the government for failing to act on their behalf.
"I am a living testimony to this belief," Sharma asserted yesterday, describing his escape as an act of "extreme circumstances forc[ing] ordinary people to do extraordinary things."
Sharma was taken by two men from in front of his home in Agricola on Wednesday to a house in Buxton. His wife was shot in the process of his kidnapping and had to undergo emergency surgery to remove the bullet from her leg.
A ransom was demanded but before it was paid, Sharma escaped captivity.
Attorney for Sharma, Vic Puran, indicated in a letter published in the Sunday Stabroek that Guyanese of both races stood with Sharma outside of the Guyana School of Agriculture after his escape as he awaited his father's arrival to take him to safety. Puran said a call to the Vigilance police station was met with a claim that the police had no vehicle to come to the school and collect him.
Puran also said Sharma's escape involved much more than just jumping out of a window and running away. Neither Sharma nor Puran would elaborate on this statement yesterday.
Stabroek News understands that Sharma was taken on the belief that he was a businessman and had money. He put in the call for the ransom to be paid but managed to escape before it was paid over.
Asked about rumours that his kidnapping was because he did not sanction the protest action by University of Guyana students protesting Yohance Douglas' killing, Sharma said this was "nonsense."
He said he empathised with the UG students and had always been supportive of them. "I am fiercely against all forms of violence against Guyanese whether it comes from the police or the criminals themselves."
Sharma's wife is a UG student pursuing her masters in development studies.
