In March, the Sun­day Guardian spot­light­ed the farm­ing com­mu­ni­ty of Carlsen Field which has ex­pe­ri­enced a wave of home in­va­sions and at­tacks on res­i­dents, in­clud­ing rape.

Two weeks ago, a rob­bery end­ed in the trag­ic killing of 27-year-old farmer Christo­pher Chris­t­ian af­ter four armed ban­dits in­vad­ed his fam­i­ly’s home on Con­nec­tor Road. His fa­ther, Matthew Perez Chris­t­ian, 66, who was shot four times in his stom­ach, is still fight­ing for his life at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex.

Head of the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Snr Supt Garvin Si­mon told the Sun­day Guardian that the po­lice have made no head­way with that mur­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Guardian Me­dia re-vis­it­ed the res­i­dents to find out what it would take to make them feel safe again.

SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Gee­ta Lakhan, 63, a live­stock farmer, has been robbed 14 times in the past ten years. She has lost con­fi­dence in the po­lice. For her, the Carlsen Field com­mu­ni­ty needs the army to keep it safe.

Be­tween March and Ju­ly 8 there have been 22 vi­o­lent home in­va­sions in the farm­ing com­mu­ni­ty and the farm­ers are con­vinced the po­lice are in­ca­pable of catch­ing the crim­i­nals who have been ter­ror­is­ing their com­mu­ni­ty since the start of this year.

Lakhan said she has lost con­fi­dence in the po­lice and wants the au­thor­i­ties to bring in pri­vate in­ves­ti­ga­tors “or some­body from abroad” to to re­store peace in the com­mu­ni­ty.

She al­so wants a cur­few should be im­posed to re­strict the thieves’ move­ments.

Lakhan has thought about sell­ing her farm and mi­grat­ing and com­pared T&T to Haiti where there is wide­spread in­se­cu­ri­ty, gang vi­o­lence and crime.

“It’s not worth it any­more,” she said, her voice chok­ing with emo­tion.

Her farm, once her sanc­tu­ary, has be­come a mag­net for rob­bers. In all the rob­beries she has ex­pe­ri­enced, the po­lice on­ly ar­rest­ed one sus­pect, a na­tion­al of Suri­name.

The lat­est at­tack was two weeks ago when four masked ban­dits, two of whom were armed, am­bushed Lakhan’s hus­band David, 67, while he was ex­er­cis­ing in the yard of their home around 5.30 am. He was hogtied and bad­ly beat­en.

Her hus­band en­dured 30 min­utes of ter­ror and tor­ment be­fore thieves left with a quan­ti­ty of US cur­ren­cy and more than $50,000 in jew­ellery and cash.

“They kept ask­ing my hus­band, ‘Where is the la­dy? Where is the wife?’” Lakhan said.

She had gone to vis­it her grand­son who was go­ing abroad.

“If I was there, it could have been worse be­cause maybe my hus­band would have tried to de­fend me, and it may have end­ed trag­i­cal­ly.”

Lakhan said the thieves kicked in four doors on the ground floor of their prop­er­ty as they searched for cash, jew­ellery and valu­ables, then moved to the up­per floor where they ran­sacked the bed­rooms.

Her hus­band en­dured 30 min­utes of ter­ror and tor­ment be­fore thieves left with a quan­ti­ty of US cur­ren­cy and more than $50,000 in jew­ellery and cash.

CCTV cam­eras, pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty and se­cu­ri­ty sys­tems do not de­ter the crim­i­nals. Lakhan has been held up at gun­point four times.

“In our busi­ness, we have been robbed sev­er­al times. They stole a truck and cars. I stopped count­ing. It’s un­bear­able now. Now it’s so dan­ger­ous you can­not come out of your house. I feel like a pris­on­er in my own home. Every day I live in fear. I am very shak­en up, to be hon­est,” she said.

A week be­fore the lat­est rob­bery, Lakhan spot­ted a man snoop­ing around the farm and sound­ed an air horn to chase him away.

“I knew they were go­ing to come back. This time they come in full force,” she said

Now she is think­ing of in­stalling an elec­tric fence which is very cost­ly.

Give us guns

Pres­i­dent of the Goat and Sheep Farm­ers As­so­ci­a­tion Shi­raz Khan said af­ter Christo­pher’s mur­der he did a head count of farm­ers in the vil­lage who had been robbed be­tween March and Ju­ly 8.

“It was about 22 rob­beries . . . un­til one farmer had to fight back and get killed. Even af­ter these bas­tards shot Christo­pher they kept ask­ing for more mon­ey but when they re­alised the boy dead they run,” he said

There are 160 sub­sis­tence and com­mer­cial farm­ers in Carlsen Field, a rur­al dis­trict where the farms and hous­es are not close to each oth­er.

In March, four armed crim­i­nals en­tered Khan’s home at Con­nec­tor Road and robbed his wife, threat­en­ing to chop off her fin­gers.

He said: “I was the sec­ond per­son who got robbed and af­ter that home in­va­sion, it just start­ed to es­ca­late un­til it end­ed in a sense­less mur­der.”

He called for farm­ers to be giv­en li­censed firearms to pro­tect them­selves.

“We can’t fight the ban­dits with cut­lass­es and fish­ing guns. We need firearms to pro­tect our­selves. No farmer go shoot an­oth­er farmer or he wife,” he said.

Khan be­lieves the rob­bers live in the com­mu­ni­ty or near­by

“They know the area well and have been mon­i­tor­ing the farm­ers’ move­ments. I feel sea­soned crim­i­nals have been work­ing with them,” he said.

Two weeks ago Dubraj Jug­mo­han, 66, was ac­cost­ed by four men bran­dish­ing guns at his Xeres Road home. His wife Pre­matie, 63, was light­ing a deya around 6.30 am in­side her tem­ple when the men point­ed their guns at her and forced her in­side the house.

Jug­mo­han was or­dered to lie face down on the floor.

“They kicked me sev­er­al times in my ribs and hit me a few times with the gun butt. My daugh­ter was in her bed­room. But they kicked in the door. She start­ed to scream out,” he said

All the pen­sion­er could do was pray.

“Thank God she was not harmed,” he said.

Then men ran­sacked Jug­mo­han’s home look­ing for mon­ey and valu­ables.

As he re­lat­ed the trau­ma his fam­i­ly faced, Jug­mo­han had to pause sev­er­al times to com­pose him­self. His hands could not stop shak­ing.

The rob­bers al­so stole his daugh­ter’s car which was found gut­ted in En­ter­prise days lat­er.

Since the in­ci­dent, Jug­mo­han has been un­easy.

“Of course, I have to be scared. My house is like a jail. I have to keep every door locked now. I have to be look­ing over my shoul­der... I don’t know if they will come back,” he said.

‘Po­lice can on­ly do so much’ (Put in Box)

Since the spate of rob­beries and the re­cent mur­der, the head of the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Snr Supt Garvin Si­mon said there have been ad­di­tion­al pa­trols in Carlsen Field.

How­ev­er, he said the po­lice “can on­ly do so much” and urged the res­i­dents to part­ner with them to form a com­mu­ni­ty watch group.

“We have en­gaged them, but they have not re­spond­ed as we would like so we con­tin­ue to reach out,” Si­mon said

A meet­ing with the sta­tion coun­cil is sched­uled for Tues­day.

TTPS sta­tis­tics showed that from Jan­u­ary to May there were 152 bur­glar­ies and break­ings in the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion com­pared to the 128 for the same pe­ri­od last year. In the last five months, 179 rob­beries were re­port­ed com­pared to 186 for the same pe­ri­od in 2023.

There were 36 wound­ings and shoot­ings in the last five months com­pared to 40 from Jan­u­ary to May of 2023.