Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Fitzger­ald Hinds says re­li­gious di­vi­sions are be­ing cre­at­ed in T&T be­cause of al­leged re­marks made by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. He said so dur­ing yes­ter­day's Sen­ate de­bate on a bill to re­peal and re­place the In­dictable Of­fences Act. Late, in an in­ter­view, Hinds said Mus­lims were "con­cerned about the bad im­pres­sion and the tar­nished im­age the Prime Min­is­ter has put on the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty." Hinds said, based on the ar­gu­ments on sev­er­al ra­dio talk shows, "peo­ple are be­gin­ning to di­vide them­selves along Mus­lim/Hin­du lines in T&T." He al­so spoke about the need to deal with the prob­lem of de­lays in the court sys­tem. He said the Vin­dra Naipaul mur­der case could not be­gin in the High Court for sev­er­al rea­sons.

He said an at­tempt by Jus­tice Min­is­ter Her­bert Vol­ney to have a sub­stan­tial fee be paid to an at­tor­ney to pro­ceed with the mat­ter in court was re­ject­ed by Cab­i­net. This was not con­firmed by Vol­ney. Hinds said when­ev­er the mat­ter came up in court the case was ad­journed re­peat­ed­ly. He al­so said the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice was be­ing de­layed be­cause po­lice of­fi­cers were un­able to at­tend court as a re­sult of state of emer­gency du­ties. He said mat­ters were ad­journed with­out hear­ing for about two days last week. Hinds said with Cab­i­net min­is­ters, like At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, whom he de­scribed as hot un­der the col­lar; Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy, whom he said was silent and pas­sive; an ad­vis­er like Gary Grif­fith and an ex­citable Prime Min­is­ter like Per­sad-Bisses­sar, T&T was in trou­ble.