Latest news with #Paria
Time of India
21-06-2025
- Time of India
Gang near Sealdah hospitals seeks ‘help', dupes youth
Kolkata: Seeking financial help for hospital treatment, followed by intimidation and threats, has emerged as yet another modus operandi being adopted by fraudsters. Ashik Paria (23), a law student, was waiting between the Sealdah bridge and B R Singh Hospital, when a couple approached him, saying they needed an online transaction of Rs 5,000 for a hospitalised relative and that if he paid on the number they provided, they would repay him in cash immediately. The couple even showed Paria a document, which seemed legitimate to the youth, said police. Convinced that the couple's need was genuine, Paria scanned the QR code on the couple's mobile payment service app and transferred Rs 5,000. Once the transaction was completed, the man denied receiving the money, despite Paria showing on his own phone that the money had been sent, said police. Several others, evidently from the same gang, surrounded Paria and intimidated him, telling him to leave. They threatened Paria if he dared to pursue the matter, police added. Paria contacted his bank, trying to recover the money but even after a 48-hour investigation, the transaction could not be reversed. He then lodged a police complaint. "They were all part of a coordinated scam operation, using fear and deception to steal money from unsuspecting victims," stated Paria's police complaint lodged at the Muchipara PS. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Temu Clearance Sale TEMU Shop Now Undo Police said a similar case was reported in front of NRS Hospital, too, suggesting the gang operated around the Sealdah bridge. Kolkata: Seeking financial help for hospital treatment, followed by intimidation and threats, has emerged as yet another modus operandi being adopted by fraudsters. Ashik Paria (23), a law student, was waiting between the Sealdah bridge and B R Singh Hospital, when a couple approached him, saying they needed an online transaction of Rs 5,000 for a hospitalised relative and that if he paid on the number they provided, they would repay him in cash immediately. The couple even showed Paria a document, which seemed legitimate to the youth, said police. Convinced that the couple's need was genuine, Paria scanned the QR code on the couple's mobile payment service app and transferred Rs 5,000. Once the transaction was completed, the man denied receiving the money, despite Paria showing on his own phone that the money had been sent, said police. Several others, evidently from the same gang, surrounded Paria and intimidated him, telling him to leave. They threatened Paria if he dared to pursue the matter, police added. Paria contacted his bank, trying to recover the money but even after a 48-hour investigation, the transaction could not be reversed. He then lodged a police complaint. "They were all part of a coordinated scam operation, using fear and deception to steal money from unsuspecting victims," stated Paria's police complaint lodged at the Muchipara PS. Police said a similar case was reported in front of NRS Hospital, too, suggesting the gang operated around the Sealdah bridge.
Daily Mail
20-06-2025
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Five men trapped in a 30-inch oil pipeline deep under the sea, air running out and left to die: Everything to know about America's No.1 podcast
On February 25 2022, five professional divers were working to repair a leaking section of oil pipeline off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago when something went terribly wrong. Unbeknownst to them, there was a pressure differential between the inside of the pipe and the underwater room in which they were working. When they removed a plug that was keeping the pipe sealed, the high-pressure air that was being pumped into the room rushed to fill the void inside the pipe with such horrifying force that it pulled the men in with it, trapping them deep beneath the Caribbean sea. They were sucked into the 30-inch-wide pipe along with a rush of sea water, down 60ft down to where the pipe turned to run along the sea floor. When they finally came to a stop along a 1,2000ft length of pipe, they managed to group together in a small air bubble. Lying on their backs in the pitch black, injured and covered in oil they strained their necks out of the liquid to breath. Over the course of three grueling hours, one man, Christopher Boodram, 39, managed to drag himself out in search of help. And he had no choice but to leave his friends behind in the air pocket. When he finally emerged from the end of the pipe, injured and exhausted, he told the crowd waiting above the waterline what had happened and begged them to rescue the others. But officials from the state-owned oil company Paria - which owns and operates the pipe - allegedly refused. They reportedly insisted that a rescue mission was too dangerous and they blocked volunteer divers from staging their own rescue attempts. The other four men who had dived with Christopher that day - Fyzal Kurban, 57, Rishi Nagassar, 48, Kazim Ali Jr, 37, and Yusuf Henry, 31 - were left to die. Yet three years on, not one person has been held accountable. Neither Christopher nor the families of those killed have received a penny in compensation. And while the world was captivated by the rescue of 15 young footballers from a Thai cave in 2018 and horrified by the Titan submersible disaster of 2023, few outside the Caribbean have heard of the 'Paria Diving Tragedy'. The Daily Mail set out to change this and to tell these men's stories with our investigative podcast, Pipeline. We found evidence of failing safety standards, lucrative contracts and secretive political relationships, and confronted some of Trinidad and Tobago's most powerful men including its then prime minister, Keith Rowley. This week, Pipeline became the top series in US Apple Podcasts when we reached number one in their American charts and number two in Australia. Today we are sharing some of the most shocking revelations that we uncovered in our bid to expose the truth of the scandalous tragedy that claimed four lives and scarred countless others. The Autopsies In the hours after Christopher escaped from the pipe, waiting volunteer divers tried to communicate with the men still trapped inside. They did so by tapping out emergency signals onto the pipe's metal sides and waiting to hear if the men tapped back. They did. In fact, the volunteers could still hear the men deep inside the pipe in the early hours of Saturday morning - almost 12 hours after they were sucked in. But despite this clear proof of life, and the agonies the men must have been experiencing in their hellish prison, Paria repeatedly blocked volunteer divers from staging a rescue. They insisted it was too dangerous. Two days later Paria announced their efforts would be focused instead on recovering the men's bodies. On Monday 28 February 2021, they started flushing them out of the pipe. The dead divers were so swollen and covered in oil that they were almost unrecognizable to the family members who went to the mortuary to identify them. But most horrifying of all, their autopsies confirmed what the tapping signals had suggested - the men had not died quickly. In fact, one of the men, Kazim Ali Jr, may have been alive for up to 39 hours in those unimaginable conditions: trapped and terrified in the dark, desperately hoping rescuers would arrive soon. Past accidents Forty years before the four men died, one of their fathers was killed while working on exactly the same stretch of pipe. In 1985, Ramjohn Kurban, Fyzal's father, was working to recommission the pipe in which his son would later die, when gases escaped from the line and caught fire. There was a huge explosion that killed 14 workers. Fast forward four decades and in December 2021, just three months before the accident, Christopher, the sole survivor of the 'Pipeline' tragedy, and Rishi Nagassar - who would perish in it - were both involved in another incident. They were working on a nearby gas line - also owned and operated by Paria - when it caught on fire, sending flames spewing across the platform. 'I was just seeing fire shooting out all over,' Christopher told the Daily Mail. 'I swam as far down to the bottom as I could and stayed as long as I could because I was expecting an explosion.' Other workers did the same, diving off the platform and swimming down into the water to escape the flames, until a boat came to pick them up. They told Paria what happened, but Christopher said the accident was 'swept under the rug' without investigation. Cruel conspiracies In the aftermath of the tragedy, the country's media descended on the small town of San Fernando, all trying to work out what went wrong, and why the four divers hadn't been saved. The story was a national sensation and Christopher became an unwilling celebrity overnight. 'Everywhere we go, everywhere he go, people recognize us,' Christopher's wife, Candy told the Daily Mail. 'People would come up and want to ask him, 'Well, how did you get out?'' But as time went on, a lack of concrete answers created an information vacuum and conspiracy theories started to fill it. People began to turn on Christopher, accusing him of lying. They said there was no way he could have survived in the pipe. They accused him of being fame hungry, or of trying to cover something up. The vitriol grew so intense that even Christopher started to think he was going crazy. When he began his escape from the pipe, he had left the other men with the promise that he would come back with help. So when he was discharged after three days in intensive care and realized that his friends hadn't been rescued, it was agony. 'I made promises that I eventually couldn't keep. And that is something that I can't let go of,' he said, 'What gives me that right to live?' As he struggled with the aftermath of this trauma and survivor's guilt he found himself the target of trolls and critics who doubted his story so publicly he began to question his own mind. 'I went mad off reading social commentary. Sometimes I was even doubting my recollection of the events,' he told the Daily Mail. Christopher was finally vindicated nine months later, at the government appointed inquiry into the tragedy. There they played footage from a GoPro one of the men had been wearing when they were sucked in - it showed them alive inside the pipe and Christopher there with them. 'After the audio played, the whole country just went, 'man this man was telling the truth',' Christopher said. 'And it's only then that it gave me some mental peace - this was real, and I didn't make this up.' To listen to the chart-topping podcast series, search for Pipeline now, wherever you get your podcasts.
Daily Mail
12-06-2025
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Lawyer claims state-owned oil company may have blocked efforts to rescue divers trapped inside underwater pipe because it was 'cheaper to allow them to die'
Podcast All episodes Play on Apple Spotify On the latest episode of the Daily Mail's Pipeline podcast, reporter Isabelle Stanley examines the chilling theories as to why Paria blocked efforts to rescue four men trapped in an underwater oil pipe. From compensation plots to international conspiracy, Stanley interviews legal experts and journalists to test the credibility of theories that emerged in the wake of the Caribbean Diving Disaster. In February 2022, five divers were sucked hundreds of feet into a 30-inch pipe they were repairing off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago. Despite one of the divers, Christopher Boodram, escaping after an unimaginable three-hour ordeal, rescue attempts for the remaining four were repeatedly blocked, leaving them to die slowly in what became a national scandal. The pipe was managed by Paria, one arm of Trinidad's state-owned oil company. In the aftermath of the tragedy, Trinidad's then-Energy Minister Stuart Young launched an official enquiry, led by one of the UK's top international criminal barristers, Jerome Lynch KC. Lynch concluded that the four divers weren't rescued because of a series of mistakes, incompetence and inaction by Paria. Despite his recommendation that the oil company be charged with corporate manslaughter, police have issued only vague statements that an investigation remains ongoing Despite his recommendation that the oil company be charged with corporate manslaughter, police have issued only vague statements that an investigation remains ongoing. This stalemate and lack of closure has created an information vacuum - which residents of Trinidad have filled with hundreds of theories, trying to work out why Paria abandoned the rescue effort. Rightly or wrongly, the victims' families wonder if there is something more… another reason to explain why their loved ones were left to die - something other than pure negligence or incompetence. Prakash Ramadhar, a lawyer representing two of the victims' families, told the podcast that he believes the oil giant may have thwarted a rescue to avoid the costs associated with caring for the injured divers if they had been pulled out alive. He claims any survivors may have suffered life-changing injuries, creating lifelong financial liability for the company. Mr Ramadhar said: 'I believe that Paria's initial belief was that they all had perished and if they had not perished, they would soon perish. 'As crass as it may sound, there is a belief in the legal fraternity that it may have been cheaper to allow the men to die than it was to rescue them, broken and maimed. 'Ensuring their medical wellbeing and upkeep for their rest of their lives is far more expensive than allowing them to die.' To hear Stanley interrogate this theory and many others that emerged in the wake of the Caribbean Diving Disaster, search for Pipeline now, wherever you get your podcasts.
Daily Mail
05-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE PIPELINE: 'It took the people's breath away' - Top barrister remembers shocking moment oil company claimed failed efforts to rescue men trapped for days inside underwater pipe were 'excellent'
On the latest episode of the Daily Mail's Pipeline podcast, reporter Isabelle Stanley interviews witnesses, diving experts, and lawyers involved in the official enquiry into the Caribbean diving disaster. In February 2022, five divers were sucked into a 30-inch pipe they were repairing off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago. Despite one of the divers, Christopher Boodram, escaping after an unimaginable three-hour ordeal, rescue attempts for the remaining four were repeatedly blocked, leaving them to die slowly in what became a national scandal. The pipe was managed by Paria, one arm of Trinidad's state-owned oil company. In the aftermath of the tragedy, Trinidad's then-Energy Minister Stuart Young launched an official enquiry, led by one of the UK's top international criminal barristers, Jerome Lynch KC. Speaking to the podcast, Lynch remembered his shock when Michael Wei, Paria's Technical Maintenance Manager who acted as Logistics Chief during the incident, sensationally claimed efforts to rescue the men were 'excellent'. Previous episodes heard how the oil company blocked a team of experienced volunteer divers, who were willing to risk their lives to save the men, from entering the pipe. The Enquiry established that Paria's Incident Commander, Collin Piper, obsessed about getting a camera into the pipe to assess the conditions inside and – despite claiming to take advice from expert divers on site – did not speak to one waiting professional until after 9.30pm, while another dive company waited for eight hours with no one from Paria speaking to them at all. Autopsies would later reveal that one of the four men trapped inside the pipe may have been alive for up to 39 hours. 'It took people's breath away', Lynch said on Wei's testimony. 'It was just an unbelievable moment. Somebody responsible for trying to rescue these men had completely failed to understand what they had achieved was essentially nothing. 'That moment told you everything you needed to know about the attitude the management of Paria had taken.' Now that proceedings have concluded, Stanley asked Lynch where he believes fault lies for the tragedy, three years after he oversaw the enquiry. 'It was the failure of a whole series of people', the barrister said. 'I do have a certain sympathy with an approach in which the company might have taken time to justify risking anybody going into that pipe when they didn't even know for a 100 percent that they were in there and that they were alive. 'But once Christopher came out of that pipe, two and a half hours or so later, they knew for sure that they were in the pipe and they knew for sure that they were alive.' 'I think Paria didn't expect anything like this to happen. They were completely paralysed and, in one sense, it was easier to do nothing than to risk anybody else's life. 'But there were those who were prepared to risk their lives to rescue them. I just don't get it – why wouldn't you have facilitated a way in which something could be done? 'To me, it is unforgivable that no real attempt was made to rescue those men.' Almost a year after the enquiry finished, Lynch produced a 380 page report into the disaster. He found that Paria had effectively prevented efforts to rescue the trapped divers, concluding that their action on that day could be characterised as gross negligence. Lynch urged Trinidad's Director of Public Prosecutions to consider charging Paria with corporate manslaughter.
Daily Mail
29-05-2025
- General
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE PIPELINE: The Coast Guard arrived with their guns and told us not to go inside - new Mail podcast explores how oil company blocked attempts to rescue men trapped inside underwater pipe
Podcast All episodes Play on Apple Spotify On the latest episode of the Mail's Pipeline podcast, reporter Isabelle Stanley investigates why efforts to rescue five men trapped in an underwater oil pipe were thwarted. In February 2022, five divers were sucked into a 30-inch pipe they were repairing off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago. Despite one of the divers, Christopher Boodram, escaping after an unimaginable three-hour ordeal, rescue attempts for the remaining four were repeatedly blocked, leaving them to die slowly in what became a national scandal. Ronald Ramoutar, who was among the first on the scene, recounted his experience to Stanley on the six-part investigative podcast. Ramoutar was an experienced diver, who headed to the site of the accident as soon as he heard what had happened. Soon after arriving, he pulled Christopher Boodram out of the pipe, where he was waiting to be rescued, having fought his way back to the surface. The pipe was managed by Paria, one arm of Trinidad's state-owned oil company. Paria maintain it was too dangerous to send rescuers into the pipe to recover the trapped men. 'When we arrived at Berth 6, we were already in diving gear. They kept shouting at us – you do not have permission to enter the water', Ramoutar said. I went into the water anyway. Inside the pipe, I heard a voice calling – I climbed back out and saw Christopher. We took some rope, tied some loops in it, and managed to get him to climb up it like a ladder. That's how we got him out. 'We spoke to Christopher about what happened – he confirmed everyone was still alive and that they were in an air pocket.' Using a tapping system to communicate with the four divers still trapped underwater, Mr Ramoutar verified Christopher's story. Along with several other volunteer divers who had also arrived at the scene, Ramoutar devised a rescue plan. They decided that Michael Kurban, whose father was trapped inside the pipe would dive inside himself, to try and pull the others out. The tragedy sparked a national scandal in Trinidad, and billboards demanding justice still line street corners to this day. Listen here On his first attempt, Michael was forced to resurface, realising that his air hose, which he was breathing through, was not long enough to go around the bend in the U-shaped pipe. 'By the time Michael came up, Paria officials told us – the Coast Guard is coming to help', Ramoutar said. 'We were told to wait. We thought, 'Good – the Coast Guard has experienced divers.' They will assist us. We backed down and waited. 'They arrived and told us – we're not trained for this; we're not going down there. They wouldn't even go inside the chamber – the whole thing was a waste of time.' Just as they were preparing to try again on their own, the Coast Guard, under Paria's orders, blocked them from staging another rescue attempt. 'They told us we cannot go', Mr Ramoutar said. 'They each had an automatic weapon. 'They said in a firm voice more than once, don't go. They kept on saying it. We decided to back down.' Three days later, on Monday February 28th 2022, Paria began pumping out the bodies of the four divers from the pipe. Autopsies would later reveal that one of them may have been alive in those unimaginable conditions for up to 39 hours. To hear all the first-hand accounts from those involved in the desperate rescue effort, search for Pipeline now, wherever you get your podcasts.
