An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Fire and po­lice of­fi­cers re­turned to the Li­cens­ing Di­vi­sion head of­fice at the Ca­roni South Bank Road yes­ter­day, as they con­tin­ued in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to an ar­son at­tack that re­sult­ed in 16 im­pound­ed ve­hi­cles be­ing burnt on Sun­day.

Af­ter por­ing over CCTV footage ob­tained from se­cu­ri­ty cam­eras in­stalled around the com­pound, the in­ves­ti­ga­tors said they were search­ing for two sus­pects who were seen jump­ing an ad­join­ing fence and tin­ker­ing with one of the im­pound­ed cars, min­utes be­fore the ex­plo­sion that sparked the mas­sive de­struc­tion of the ve­hi­cles.

Trans­port Com­mis­sion­er Clive Clarke and oth­er se­nior of­fi­cials of the Li­cens­ing Di­vi­sion and the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port (MOWT) met with in­ves­ti­ga­tors to con­duct a val­u­a­tion ex­er­cise yes­ter­day, as they tried to de­ter­mine the val­ue of the dam­age caused.

The 15 burnt cars and one mo­tor­cy­cle had been im­pound­ed in re­la­tion to on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS). Ini­tial­ly, the Li­cens­ing Di­vi­sion had in­di­cat­ed 14 ve­hi­cles were torched in the at­tack. Yes­ter­day, the fig­ure was re­vised up­wards, in­clud­ing the ad­di­tion of a mo­tor­cy­cle.

Cam­era footage ob­tained by the au­thor­i­ties in­di­cate that around 3.30 am, two men dressed in dark cloth­ing and wear­ing hood­ies ex­it­ed a ve­hi­cle on the road in the near Young Sing Home Cen­tre Lim­it­ed.

The sus­pects were record­ed jump­ing the fenced area of the Li­cens­ing com­pound on the north west­ern side, fol­low­ing which they ran to the ve­hi­cles that had been parked near the Ve­hi­cle In­spec­tion Bay on the west­ern side of the com­pound.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that ve­hi­cles seized dur­ing road ex­er­cis­es by Li­cens­ing of­fi­cers, which are found to have var­i­ous de­fects, are placed in that area.

The sus­pects were seen plac­ing some­thing un­der what ap­peared to be a wag­on with a sun-roof—whose make, mod­el and reg­is­tra­tion num­ber was not known—be­fore pour­ing a liq­uid on the car and cre­at­ing a trail lead­ing away from ve­hi­cle.

It was re­port­ed that af­ter an ap­prox­i­mate dis­tance of 15 feet, the men set fire to the flam­ma­ble sub­stance, caus­ing the car to ex­plode and the fire to spread to near­by ve­hi­cles. The sus­pects were then seen ex­it­ing the com­pound the same way they en­tered, be­fore es­cap­ing in the wait­ing car.

An anony­mous call was lat­er placed at 3.48 am, in­form­ing the po­lice that there was a fire at the Li­cens­ing Di­vi­sion in Ca­roni.

Fire of­fi­cers from the Tu­na­puna Fire Sta­tion re­spond­ed and were able to ex­tin­guish the blaze. How­ev­er, the cause was not im­me­di­ate­ly known at the time.

Chief Fire Of­fi­cer Arnold Bris­to yes­ter­day said ar­son was sus­pect­ed and as­sured that a “deep­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion” is be­ing car­ried out.