SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Cou­va South Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Rudranath In­dars­ingh wants in­creased po­lice vig­i­lance in his con­stituen­cy.This, af­ter af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's an­nounce­ment that the cur­few had been lift­ed as of Mon­day.In­dars­ingh, who is al­so Min­is­ter in the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­istry, said his con­stituents en­joyed a high sense of se­cu­ri­ty when the cur­few went in­to ef­fect in Cou­va, af­ter nu­mer­ous calls from the res­i­dents of Dow Vil­lage, Cal­i­for­nia, and McBean.Vil­lagers had com­plained about crim­i­nal el­e­ments from crime hot spots in north Trinidad in­vad­ing the area.In­dars­ingh said the cur­few had been suc­cess­ful in rid­ding T&T of a large quan­ti­ty of il­le­gal arms and oth­er con­tra­band and keep­ing crime and crim­i­nal el­e­ments un­der con­trol.

He said the lift­ing of the cur­few was an in­di­ca­tion of the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar Gov­ern­ment to lis­ten to the voic­es of the peo­ple who, he said, were call­ing for an end to cur­few hours.Nal Ram­s­ingh, pres­i­dent of the Cou­va/Point Lisas Cham­ber of Com­merce, said the cham­ber wel­comed the end of the cur­few. He said sev­er­al small busi­ness­es and en­tre­pre­neurs had been start­ing to feel the squeeze.Ram­s­ingh said, how­ev­er, that the state of emer­gency and the cur­few had dealt a se­ri­ous blow to crime in the Cou­va area.He said the cham­ber would like to see in­creased po­lice/army pa­trols in the area for the up­com­ing Christ­mas shop­ping sea­son.Ram­s­ingh's term as cham­ber pres­i­dent ends to­mor­row when the cham­ber will hold ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions.