The raids at sev­en homes in Gulf View may not be po­lit­i­cal, as none of the home­own­ers are ac­tive sup­port­ers or con­trib­u­tors to the UNC, says Oropouche MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal.

In an in­ter­view hours af­ter the raids yes­ter­day, Mooni­lal said, “T&T is fac­ing dark days as the po­lice are now ex­e­cut­ing a reign of ter­ror on or­di­nary cit­i­zens.”

Hav­ing ex­am­ined all the homes which were raid­ed, Mooni­lal said, “I can say cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly that no one has any as­so­ci­a­tion with the par­ty or be­ing an ac­tive sup­port­er or con­trib­u­tor. Most of them are not ac­quain­tances. I am dev­as­tat­ed that in a com­mu­ni­ty like this, po­lice can take such ac­tion with­out find­ing some­thing or com­ing up with some kind of ev­i­dence to sug­gest they have act­ed prop­er­ly.”

He added, “This makes Bu­ju Ban­ton’s raid pale in sig­nif­i­cance.”

Mooni­lal said he was al­so con­cerned that the raids were un­suc­cess­ful.

“Up to this time they have found noth­ing. It is tan­ta­mount to a reign of ter­ror. I call up­on the TTPS to say what is the cause which trig­gered such a mam­moth search in the Gulf View area.

“Oth­er res­i­dents have spo­ken to me. I have had con­tact with our MP Faris Al-Rawi and we are call­ing on him to in­quire quick­ly in­to the cir­cum­stances that led to that op­er­a­tion in this res­i­den­tial area,” Mooni­lal said.

He lament­ed that a re­tired teacher’s home was searched and her door bro­ken in. “It is un­for­giv­able, un­ten­able and speaks to a reign of ter­ror. Our com­mu­ni­ty is un­der siege. I won­der what is the pur­pose when noth­ing has been found? I am call­ing AG to act im­me­di­ate­ly and al­though the sub­stan­tia­tive Com­mis­sion­er is out of the coun­try, the TTPS must is­sue a state­ment.”

He not­ed that he has been a re­cent new­com­er to Gulf View.

“As some may know, I am a new res­i­dent in the area and I have been well re­ceived by my fel­low res­i­dents,” he said, adding he was pre­pared to meet with the af­fect­ed res­i­dents and of­fer le­gal ad­vice.

Asked whether he be­lieved the raids had any con­nec­tion to pol­i­tics, Mooni­lal said, “I am clear that the mat­ters in­volv­ing the ar­rests of Anand Ram­lo­gan and Ger­ald Ramdeen are po­lit­i­cal in na­ture. Nei­ther of them is charged and they have been placed in an op­pres­sive and dic­ta­to­r­i­al en­vi­ron­ment. I don’t know whether this (Gulf View raids) is about pol­i­tics or an at­tempt to dis­tract. This speaks to the State’s reign of ter­ror.”

Mooni­lal added, “I am call­ing on the TTPS and AG to im­me­di­ate­ly in­quire and is­sue a state­ment.”