JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Monday, July 7, 2025

Barrackpore residents claim police victimisation after protests

by

1362 days ago
20211013
Kishan Maharaj claims his DVR was taken by police officers following protest action by Barrackpore residents on Tuesday.

Kishan Maharaj claims his DVR was taken by police officers following protest action by Barrackpore residents on Tuesday.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

Sascha Wil­son

Af­ter two days of fiery protests in Bar­rack­pore over bad roads and wa­ter woes, res­i­dents are now claim­ing po­lice vic­tim­i­sa­tion.

This comes on the heels of the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port warn­ing that the po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing and ap­pro­pri­ate le­gal ac­tion would be tak­en af­ter roads were dam­aged dur­ing the fiery protests ear­li­er this week.

Res­i­dent Kis­han Ma­haraj, who op­er­ates a busi­ness at his home, said po­lice searched sev­er­al homes in Bar­rack­pore and seized video footage on Tues­day.

He claimed that around 2 to 3 pm about 30 heav­i­ly armed po­lice of­fi­cers stormed his home with no war­rant in search of his DVR sys­tem.

Com­plain­ing that some of the of­fi­cers wore no masks, ig­nored the COVID-19 guide­lines and walked through his house with their dirty shoes, Ma­haraj is now fear­ful that he and his fam­i­ly, in­clud­ing his el­der­ly par­ents, have been ex­posed to the Coro­n­avirus.

Al­though the protests were close to his home, he said he did not par­tic­i­pate in the ac­tion.

He re­called, “When the po­lice came I told them they could take the record­ings but leave my cam­era and DVR. The of­fi­cers start­ed to buff me and rough up my 70-year-old fa­ther. They did not want to hear any­thing I had to say or any­one else had to say.”

He said the of­fi­cers re­mained at his home for about 20 min­utes.

“It was 20 min­utes of tor­ture we did not have any deal­ings with the po­lice we have no crim­i­nals liv­ing with us and we are not in­volved in any crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties. I see protests all over the coun­try this is the first time in my life I see­ing the po­lice treat peo­ple so. I was not in­volved but I am in sup­port of my fel­low vil­lagers be­cause for far too long we have suf­fered and we have not got­ten any help with the bad roads and no wa­ter. I felt tar­get­ed and vic­timised and I don’t know if the po­lice are us­ing this to op­press we the poor peo­ple of Bar­rack­pore,” he claimed.

Ma­haraj claimed while the po­lice were “flash­ing around pa­pers” he was not shown a war­rant.

Say­ing that the po­lice act­ed as though a mur­der­er was liv­ing at his house, he said he de­cid­ed to stand up.

Say­ing that her law-abid­ing and hard-work­ing cit­i­zens, he said the vil­lagers were amazed by the po­lice’s ac­tions.

Ma­haraj said his lawyers have since writ­ten to the act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice about the mat­ter and ask­ing him to in­ter­vene.

“Be­cause we reach a state in this coun­try we are be­ing bul­lied. We can’t get a chance to do noth­ing, you can­not stand up for your rights or noth­ing so they may be us­ing this state of emer­gency to vic­timise peo­ple,” he said.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, who gave his name as Randy, said the po­lice con­duct­ed a road traf­fic ex­er­cise at Soumanie Trace and gave him a tick­et for not wear­ing a seat­belt.

Randy said he be­lieves he was tar­get­ed be­cause he was one of the pro­test­ers.

A se­nior po­lice source con­firmed that of­fi­cers ex­e­cut­ed war­rants at homes in Bar­rack­pore af­ter res­i­dents were hes­i­tant to com­ply with their re­quests for the footage.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored