Kali­fa Clyne

The peo­ple of this coun­try have noth­ing to fear from the Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen, says its leader Imam Yasin Abu Bakr.

Abu Bakr made the state­ment yes­ter­day fol­low­ing a prison break in Port-of-Spain in­volv­ing Mus­lim men.

Dur­ing a press con­fer­ence at the Ja­maat's Mu­cu­rapo com­pound, Abu Bakr said he wished to as­sure the pop­u­la­tion that there was "no rea­son to pan­ic."

Mem­bers of the pub­lic have at­tempt­ed to link yes­ter­day's in­ci­dent to the Ja­maat through ei­ther its close­ness to the 25th an­niver­sary of the 1990 coup at­tempt, in which Abu Bakr was in­volved, or to the de­ten­tion of Abu Bakr and sev­er­al oth­er Mus­lim cit­i­zens ear­li­er this week.

How­ev­er, Abu Bakr dis­missed the ru­mours as pure spec­u­la­tion, adding that he did not know any­thing about the in­ci­dent oth­er than what he heard re­port­ed.

"The in­for­ma­tion is sketchy so we can­not make an in­formed com­ment at this time," he said, adding he felt he should ad­dress cit­i­zens due to the anx­i­ety in so­ci­ety, es­pe­cial­ly where Mus­lims were con­cerned.

Asked whether the es­caped pris­on­ers were mem­bers of the Ja­maat, Abu Bakr's son, Fuad, said the Ja­maat did not have mem­bers per se.

"The in­di­vid­u­als who they say es­caped from prison have been in prison for 11 or 12 years, so if they are mem­bers of any­thing they are mem­bers of the prison," Fuad said.

"We know there are con­cerns re­gard­ing peo­ple af­fil­i­at­ed with us. We have come here to say we have noth­ing to do with the crim­i­nal acts."

Abu Bakr said the Ja­maat had some is­sues which would be ad­dressed through the le­gal process.

Both Abu Bakr and Fuad al­so pub­licly asked the pro­tec­tive ser­vices not to dis­crim­i­nate against mem­bers of the Mus­lim faith.

"We al­so ask mem­bers of the me­dia to be re­spon­si­ble and to be fair in their re­port­ing and to en­sure they don't con­tribute to mak­ing a chaot­ic cli­mate in our blessed na­tion."

Ac­cord­ing to Fuad, the Ja­maat had re­ceived pic­tures and seen com­ments as well as heard voice record­ings of an al­leged po­lice of­fi­cer en­cour­ag­ing vi­o­lence against all Mus­lims.

"We al­so saw peo­ple in Mus­lim garb be­ing held in the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah. We are ask­ing the pro­tec­tive ser­vices to do their jobs in the best way pos­si­ble but to at­tempt to ap­pre­hend with­out harm."