Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Con­gress of the Peo­ple po­lit­i­cal leader Prakash Ra­mad­har says act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams is the "best per­son" to probe the al­leged ex­is­tence of a re­vamped Fly­ing Squad.Speak­ing with re­porters at the COP's Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre in Char­lieville yes­ter­day, Ra­mad­har dis­missed calls for an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­tiga­tive body to in­quire in­to al­le­ga­tions that the squad is back in op­er­a­tion.

He said the of­fice of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice was best suit­ed to lead the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the ex­is­tence of the al­leged squad."Where there are se­ri­ous is­sues raised and where the truth has to be found and where it may deal with na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sues and the is­sue of tak­ing ev­i­dence and so on...the prop­er body to do that is the Po­lice Ser­vice and the com­mis­sion­er of po­lice, act­ing or oth­er­wise," he said.

Ra­mad­har said un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion, the of­fice of the com­mis­sion­er is an in­de­pen­dent body and an in­de­pen­dent in­sti­tu­tion."It is the best in­sti­tu­tion with the re­sources avail­able to do those in­quires and in­ves­ti­ga­tions," he said.Ra­mad­har, who is al­so Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter, ad­mit­ted that con­cerns were raised over the com­mis­sion­er lead­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­cause cit­i­zens are los­ing faith in such in­sti­tu­tions.

How­ev­er, he as­sured his par­ty is work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly to have faith re­stored in all in­de­pen­dent in­sti­tu­tions."If you have in­sti­tu­tions you have to em­pow­er them and strength­en them," he said.He said when a mat­ter goes be­fore the com­mis­sion­er of po­lice, "you can­not say I won­der if we will get a fair and just in­ves­ti­ga­tion. We must take that as a giv­en and move from that point."

Ra­mad­har said he was anx­ious­ly await­ing the re­port on the Fly­ing Squad as well, since "we con­demn any il­le­gal use of state re­sources" and the in­clu­sion of any­one who is not part of le­gal law en­force­ment. He said if the al­le­ga­tions are true, then that is a se­ri­ous breach of the Con­sti­tu­tion and if that is not true, "then that is se­ri­ous case of pub­lic mis­chief and there should be con­se­quences."Mem­bers of the re­vamped Fly­ing Squad unit have promised to give their side of the sto­ry at a press con­fer­ence to­day.