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Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Kublalsingh held again in highway protest

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20140316

High­way Re-route Move­ment leader Dr Wayne Kublals­ingh was hand­cuffed and bod­i­ly re­moved from a bull­doz­er yes­ter­day by po­lice dur­ing a protest to stop con­struc­tion work in the Gopie Trace, Pe­nal area, yes­ter­day.Dur­ing the high­ly-emo­tion­al demon­stra­tion, mem­bers Van­dana Boodai, 23, and Ramkaran Bhag­wans­ingh were al­so ar­rest­ed and tak­en to the Pe­nal Po­lice Sta­tion.While oth­er mem­bers cried and begged the po­lice to leave them alone, high­way sup­port­ers cheered and clapped, re­sult­ing in a clash be­tween the two groups.

High­way Re-route mem­bers are against the Debe to Mon De­sir seg­ment of $7.5 bil­lion Solomon Ho­choy High­way ex­ten­sion to Point Fortin be­ing built by Brazil­ian con­struc­tion firm, Con­stru­to­ra OAS. This is the fourth time in six months that Kublals­ingh has been ar­rest­ed for en­gag­ing in sim­i­lar ac­tion.

Led by Kublals­ingh, the mem­bers walked from their near­by camp to a grad­ed area off the road where OAS's bull­doz­er and test­ing equip­ment were lo­cat­ed. On the bull­doz­er they placed four "tyres of shame," sprayed abeer (colour­ful liq­uid used dur­ing Phag­wa) on the win­dow and smeared it with mud.

Kublals­ingh claimed he spoke with some­one at the site who agreed to move out the trac­tor. Short­ly af­ter, how­ev­er, four jeep-loads of po­lice of­fi­cers ar­rived. Kublals­ingh called on his mem­bers to climb on top of the bull­doz­er as oth­ers sur­round­ed it while they prayed. Af­ter be­ing warned by the po­lice, all but Kublals­ingh had dis­mount­ed. Four of­fi­cers climbed up the bull­doz­er and lift­ed him down.

In a press con­fer­ence ear­li­er, Kublals­ingh said the move­ment will con­tin­ue to re­sist "in a dra­mat­ic way" any at­tempt to bull­doze ar­eas in Ghan­di Vil­lage to Mon De­sir area.

Siew, 72: They have to bull­doze house with me in it

He said on Fri­day Bali­ram Siew, 72, was served with a Sec­tion 4 no­tice. Siew had been oc­cu­py­ing his house for over 60 years and was the own­er of the land for 40 years. "We are plead­ing with you (Prime Min­is­ter). Please have com­pas­sion and lis­ten to the peo­ple of Debe/Mon De­sir and this coun­try." He called on her to abide by the Arm­strong re­port.Siew, who lives with sev­en oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers, said, "They have to bull­doze the house with me in it." He said he was nev­er of­fered any com­pen­sa­tion."

Fix­ing T&T pres­i­dent Kirk Wait­he, who was part of the protest, said even though the Gov­ern­ment might not be break­ing the law, it is eth­i­cal­ly and moral­ly wrong.

Sup­port group: We need ahigh­way, we are los­ing $$

High­way Sup­port Group spokesman Har­land Teemul said a lot of busi­ness­men are be­ing af­fect­ed be­cause of Kublals­ingh's ac­tions."We are not rul­ing out a court case against Kubals­ingh. A lot of peo­ple and busi­ness peo­ple are los­ing mon­ey. He is stalling the high­way. We need a high­way."T&T Guardian was told that the com­pa­ny would be set­ting up a se­cu­ri­ty booth on the site.Up to late yes­ter­day, nei­ther Kublals­ingh nor his mem­bers were charged.


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