A Land En­force­ment Of­fi­cer at­tached to the Of­fice of the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands, Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries, is due to ap­pear at the Ari­ma Mag­is­trates’ Court to­day, charged with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice.

An of­fi­cial re­lease from the Po­lice Ser­vice con­firms that MA­HEN­DAR­D­ATH JAIKARAN, 51, was charged with two counts of mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice on March 31st, 2022, fol­low­ing ad­vice re­ceived from Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, Roger Gas­pard SC.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, some­time in No­vem­ber 2021, a let­ter al­leged­ly was forged that grant­ed two per­sons per­mis­sion to build a tilapia fish­ing pond on State Lands lo­cat­ed at Waller­field.

On March 11th, 2022, a par­ty of of­fi­cers con­duct­ed ex­ten­sive en­quiries, which led to the ex­e­cu­tion of a search war­rant at the home of an em­ploy­ee of the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries. Sev­er­al forged let­ters al­leged­ly were found and seized at the res­i­dence.  The doc­u­ments al­leged­ly pur­port­ed to be from the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries, Land Man­age­ment Di­vi­sion, Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands.

Jaikaran was sub­se­quent­ly ar­rest­ed, in con­nec­tion with the mat­ter.

En­quiries were su­per­vised by Snr. Supt. Deryck Walk­er, An­ti­Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tions Bu­reau (ACIB) and Supt. Avinash Singh, con­duct­ed by In­sp. Bry­on Daniel (Le­gal Of­fi­cer), W/In­sp. Ali­cia McMil­lan, Sgt. Phillip, Cpl Sealey, Cpl Ma­haraj, PC Sub­ran and WPC Ramdeo.

Mean­while, the Po­lice Ser­vice con­firms that an­oth­er em­ploy­ee of the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries, ROBERT MO­HAMMED, was charged with forgery on Sat­ur­day 27th March 2022.