Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

A Pe­nal man who wres­tled with two rob­bers af­ter they chopped and ter­rorised his fam­i­ly is beg­ging the Gov­ern­ment to pro­vide coun­selling for his chil­dren in­stead of crit­i­cis­ing him about us­ing ex­ces­sive force, which led to the death of one of the rob­bers. Shamshad Ali, 52, said since the tragedy, his daugh­ter Nisha Alexan­der, her boyfriend Roger Ho­sein and Ali's two chil­dren-Kate­lyn, four, and Kevin, 10-have been un­able to re­turn to their Old Clarke Road, Pe­nal, home.

The house is still cov­ered in blood and is a con­stant re­minder of the tor­ment the fam­i­ly suf­fered last Thurs­day when known crim­i­nal Ke­ston Con­tr­era, 21, and his ac­com­plice stormed the house and chopped Ho­sein as he slept, be­fore chok­ing and beat­ing Alexan­der and her chil­dren. In a brief in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Ali broke down in tears, say­ing he could not for­get the in­ci­dent. "So long and the Gov­ern­ment still have not pro­vid­ed coun­selling...What they ex­pect me to do?" he said. "I see my daugh­ter run out the house bleed­ing and cry­ing. She say ban­dits kill (Ho­sein). All I could do was jump in my car and chase them be­cause I suf­fer­ing from arthri­tis and can­not run."

Ali de­nied that he killed Con­tr­era. He said the man had a gap­ing wound on his foot which he sus­tained dur­ing the strug­gle. The dis­traught grand­fa­ther said he was un­armed, and it was Con­tr­era's ac­com­plice who chopped him dur­ing the melee. Ali said he was very dis­ap­point­ed at the state­ments made by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs and Jus­tice Min­is­ter Hu­bert Vol­ney, who both warned cit­i­zens not to use ex­ces­sive force when ap­pre­hend­ing rob­bers.

Say­ing that he had no al­ter­na­tive but to pro­tect his chil­dren, Ali ex­plained that he had worked for $15 a half day in the cane­fields of Bar­rack­pore to get mon­ey to raise his chil­dren. "I worked hard and things were dif­fi­cult, but I nev­er thief any­body thing," he said. "I could not stand there and see them hurt my chil­dren and I do not re­gret what hap­pened, but I sor­ry." His wife An­gela said they lived in the con­stituen­cy of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, yet to date, none of the rob­bery vic­tims had re­ceived coun­selling.

She said res­i­dents of Pleas­antville who were left home­less af­ter crim­i­nals threw a molo­tov cock­tail at an HDC apart­ment were re­ward­ed with new homes with­in days, yet the Gov­ern­ment had failed to pro­tect in­no­cent cit­i­zens. "Now when we try to pro­tect our­selves, they are crit­i­cis­ing us...It is not fair," An­gela said. "Vol­ney and Gibbs should both re­sign!" Mean­while, Ho­sein was dis­charged from San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day, and was tak­en to stay with rel­a­tives in cen­tral Trinidad. Alexan­der said they hoped to move back to the house some­time in the fu­ture. Sgt Siew, of Bar­rack­pore Po­lice Sta­tion, is head­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.