"I cannot live in my own home...That policeman making my life miserable." These were the words of Pamela Seeram as she stumbled blindly around her ransacked house, wiping away tears of frustration and helplessness. It's been twice that the police have raided Seeram's Garth Road, Williamsville, home since the state of emergency was declared. On the first occasion, nothing was found, but on the last occasion, Seeram alleged that police planted marijuana inside her house, stole crab and dumplings from her pot and arrested her 30-year-old lover, after beating him.
Seeram alleges that a police officer, assigned to the Southern Division, whom she knows well, is behind the attacks as he had threatened her on several occasions before. Recalling the latest incident, Seeram said she was at home with her boyfriend around 6 pm on Tuesday, when two jeeploads of police arrived.
"They just ran in and began ransacking everything," she said. She said she kept walking with the police when they began searching the house, as she did not trust them. Seeram claimed she saw one of the officers pull out a bag of marijuana. "When I started telling him that he putting weed in my house, he tell me to shut up or he will set me up too," she said.
She added that the officers began beating her boyfriend, who was eventually arrested. Seeram said the police stayed at the house from 6 pm to about 8 pm. There were six of them. "Some of them went outside in the porch and they were eating the crab and dumplings and laughing at me...The neighbours saw them," she said. She added that the officers came in a black jeep and wore blue police uniforms that did not show their badge numbers. Tuesday's incident was the second to have occurred within a week, Seeram said. She claimed that on August 26, police broke into her home and began smashing everything. "They were cursing me and abusing me," she said.
Seeram said she did not report the matter as she believed that it would not happen again. Meanwhile, a senior police officer said Seeram must file a report at the Police Complaints Authority, after which an investigation would be done. Last week, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar said an inter-ministerial committee had been set up to deal with cases of abuse.