Rush­ton Paray, Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Ma­yaro, says the bru­tal and cold-blood­ed slay­ing of an in­no­cent 13-year-old child il­lus­trates the gloom and an­guish hov­er­ing over T&T.

Paray says the killing of teenag­er An­drea Lal­lan while she slept at Lib­ertville, Rio Claro fol­lows the re­cent mur­ders of the Gua­napo fam­i­ly, in­clud­ing a 10-year-old girl, and sev­er­al oth­er homi­cides.

The tra­di­tion­al­ly qui­et Rio Claro com­mu­ni­ty last week lost busi­ness­man Kris Ram­saran, who was shot 16 times while in St. He­le­na.

The drown­ing of pen­sion­er Fa­reed Kas­sim at the Ma­yaro beach last week­end has brought fur­ther grief to the south-east­ern com­mu­ni­ties.

He added, “These in­ci­dents and the un­ceas­ing bloody trail have added to un­re­lent­ing de­spair and sor­row, with seem­ing­ly no end in sight un­der the col­lapsed Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion.”

Paray lament­ed that it is hor­ri­fy­ing that, in the midst of such unchecked cat­a­stro­phe, there is still “no pur­pose­ful in­ter­ven­tion” from Prime Min­is­ter Dr Row­ley and his non-per­form­ing Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds.

He be­lieves T&T is in the throes of an un­prece­dent­ed tor­ment and pain and cries out for lead­er­ship to bring an end to the crime scourge and to pro­vide com­fort to af­fect­ed com­mu­ni­ties and fam­i­lies.