Imagine suffering a wound from a chop. Then imagine that wound showing no signs of healing.
It’s how the sister of missing nail technician Ashma Naimool has been feeling since June 3, 2015.
Nia Naimool, 36, and members of her family have searched every corner of this island with the hope of finding Ashma.
The Naimool family, along with other families, received calls about ten months ago to identify the remains of a female body. There was no confirmation that the remains were those of Ashma.
While their search efforts have produced no results, the family refuses to give up hope of finding their loved one. Ashma went missing days before her 33rd birthday. She and Nia were best friends who lived together in an apartment in Tacarigua. Ashma moved in with Nia while finalising a divorce. She was trying to become an independent young woman but her dreams were shortlived when she left the apartment one evening with a male friend and never returned.
Nia described the close relationship which Ashma shared with a male as “unhealthy.”
“My sister wanted to have her own apartment and a successful business but that never happened,” she said.
The Sunday Guardian spoke with Nia on Thursday. She shared personal details of her sister’s life and recalled how much love she still feels for her. Nia stills drink tea in Ashma’s teacup.
Ashma was one of four sisters; she also has two brothers. The Naimool family, originally from Biche, has been ripped apart with pain since her disappearance, Nia said.
“The time leading up to Ashma’s disappearance, the crucial time like what every family goes through...those months... we got phone calls from people all over telling us her body was here and there or behind a patch in church. We were asked to send $500 to people’s phones saying they will tell us where Ashma was.
“People called and said she was right there with them, that men were raping her...”
Nia said calls were traced to the prisons from people trying to extort money from the family. She even said the family paid an undisclosed sum to the host of a popular local TV show but still never got assistance.
She said the family never took any call or tip off for granted and went on many wild goose chases.
“In the moment, you would do anything.”
Ashma was the favourite among the siblings; she was also her mother’s favourite child. Nia said there was never any jealousy over that, and joked that they all accepted it.
Ashma’s 56-year-old mother, security guard Seelochanie Lal, has had many sleepless months. Nia said her mother worries and breaks down in tears very often. And with the kidnapping of south hairdresser Ria Sookdeo, the pain has become even more unbearable.
No healing
Trying to relate the pain she feels, Nia said, “Rhonda, this kind of trauma...there isn’t any one word to describe it. If you can understand what I am telling you, you might can get a little insight. Have you ever grieved for someone? Have you ever felt grief?”
She went on, “Losing somebody who went missing and who disappeared like this, without a trace...it is a deep suffering. It is a deep suffering and here is how I look at it. Have you ever seen a chop wound? It is a big chop and no matter how you try to stitch that up, you keep seeing pink all the time. No matter how you try to put it together, that’s how it feels...like a never healing wound. There is no sign of healing.”
She said she often wondered why another person would drop off a young woman by the lonely roadside in Arouca in the night. The CCTV footage which Nia viewed at the Arima bar where Ashma and the male companion were last seen showed the time code as 9.40 pm on June 3.
Police need
special training
Over the last 15 months, the Naimool family has spent money on their own investigation searching for Ashma.
“I can never imagine the police of our country ever doing what we have done,” Nia said.
She said there needed to be a restructuring of the unit set up to deal with missing persons and said she believed if there was a more professional, competent and skilled set of police officers, her sister would have been found earlier, dead or alive.
Nia said, “If you get a call, act on it. At one time we sent $500 to someone because we wanted our sister. Nobody told us not to do that. They don’t tell you that people will call you and tell you x, y and z. They sit there and take a statement and that’s it. Imagine they took statements from me and all of my sisters, but not first from the person who was in the company of my sister.”
She criticised the police saying they were “lackadaisical” and “lagged” with the case. She said the family had begun to get “fed up” of calling and visiting the police.
“I think she would have been found. Her phone was traced to the Lopinot area.” She said her sister’s case was “just another one.”