SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Ch­agua­nas is in ur­gent need of more foot pa­trols says Ch­agua­nas West MP Jack Warn­er and Ch­agua­nas May­or Or­lan­do Nages­sar. Both men were speak­ing with the Sun­day Guardian at Warn­er's Ch­agua­nas West Con­stituen­cy of­fice at Ca­roni Sa­van­nah Road yes­ter­day. Warn­er said he was dis­gust­ed to learn that Fe­lic­i­ty res­i­dent Ve­ra Bha­jan, 22, an at­tor­ney and na­tion­al award win­ner who was born with­out arms was robbed along the Ch­agua­nas Main Road on Tues­day. Warn­er said: "This is the low­est of the low, for some­body to rob some­body in that con­di­tion. It is the low­est of the low; we have reached the depths in this coun­try."

The Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter said the means to come down heavy on law­break­ers must be re­alised in or­der to curb crime. Warn­er called for a heavy 24-hour po­lice pres­ence in the bor­ough. "A po­lice pres­ence would act as a de­ter­rent. I used to be a po­lice of­fi­cer in my younger years and pa­trolling was the norm. Now it's the ex­cep­tion." Nages­sar said he spoke with Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy one week ago when Sandy at­tend­ed a town meet­ing at Ed­in­burgh 500 to deal with crime. Nages­sar said Sandy promised more pa­trols and added staff for both the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice and the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice but noth­ing has hap­pened since.

He said: "We need joint po­lice and army pa­trols in the bor­ough. There are more than 100,000 peo­ple pass­ing through Ch­agua­nas dai­ly and there are on­ly 100 po­lice­men in the sta­tion and the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice has around 20 of­fi­cers. "If we have to take a proac­tive ap­proach in polic­ing we need a vis­i­ble po­lice pres­ence. "Po­lice can be seen parad­ing in ve­hi­cles but there is an ab­sence of foot pa­trols. If there were po­lice­men on foot maybe they would have caught Veera's rob­ber." Nages­sar said he spoke with Bha­jan who ap­peared to be ex­treme­ly trau­ma­tised and dis­turbed by the event. Bha­jan, how­ev­er, said the mat­ter was in the hands of the po­lice and she did not wish to com­ment any fur­ther.