San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Anil Juter­am is ap­peal­ing to the po­lice to im­ple­ment brute force to erad­i­cate crim­i­nals who are re­port­ed­ly caus­ing hav­oc in the re­gion.

He’s al­so call­ing on the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands to be more ac­tive be­cause land grab­bing and squat­ting is the pri­ma­ry cause of crim­i­nal­i­ty and mur­ders in the re­gion.

On Wednes­day, act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob said of the 28 mur­ders in the area, about 50 per cent are be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed as hav­ing links to gang ac­tiv­i­ty.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on Thurs­day, Juter­am said, “The East­ern Di­vi­sion con­sists of nine po­lice sta­tions and when you look at the con­fig­u­ra­tion of the nine po­lice sta­tions and look at the trends of crime it’s on­ly one and that is in the San­gre Grande North East and West area, these are ar­eas called the Pine Set­tle­ment, North East­ern Set­tle­ment and Pic­ton Road Ex­ten­sions and the lev­el of mur­ders tak­ing place with­in the last cou­ple of months is due to a re­sult of land grab­bing and squat­ting.”

He added: “San­gre Grande it­self is a close-knit com­mu­ni­ty and what is hap­pen­ing, per­sons from out­side of the area com­ing here to hi­ber­nate and com­mit crimes, maybe they are want­ed in oth­er ar­eas and they see it as an av­enue to earn a liv­ing in terms of sell­ing State land.

“I want to im­plore the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands to get ac­tive in see­ing about clamp­ing down these things. We have forest­ed ar­eas along the Va­len­cia stretch be­ing torn down and ripped apart, noth­ing is be­ing done and the same thing is hap­pen­ing in these parts.”

Res­i­dents of Pic­ton Ex­ten­sion said they were con­cerned about the in­crease in crime and mur­ders. Many said were fear­ful they can be­come ca­su­al­ties of the on­go­ing feud and called for more po­lice pres­ence in these ar­eas.

One man, who did not give his name, said gun­men have been com­ing through the forest­ed ar­eas. He said not all the peo­ple who are in­volved are from San­gre Grande.

He said, “The po­lice have been do­ing their best with what­ev­er man­pow­er they have to curb the sit­u­a­tion. These of­fi­cers have been work­ing 24/7, but what has hap­pened in one of the in­ci­dents is af­ter a po­lice shift was over, gun­men were on the prowl and some­one was mur­dered.

“This is some­thing that has to be fought ag­gres­sive­ly by the po­lice, but what is pre­vent­ing the po­lice from do­ing their work is when you have agen­cies like the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty and the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau. The po­lice, they are the ones who be­come the causal­i­ty of this. We want the po­lice do the work but when they do it, they have to be sus­pend­ed and sent for desk du­ties, it can­not work. These po­lice of­fi­cers, they are on­ly hu­mans be­cause when they are in the line of fire, they must re­tal­i­ate.”

The com­mu­ni­ty has been hit by a spate of killings re­cent­ly.

On Tues­day, a fish­er­man and ex­ca­va­tor op­er­a­tor, Wind­sor Mungroo, was shot dead as he at­tempt­ed to leave his home at Pic­ton Ex­ten­sion Road. And on Sun­day evening, the body of an uniden­ti­fied man was found in a shack in the area. He had been shot in the head. Last Fri­day, five peo­ple were shot along Pic­ton Ex­ten­sion Road. One per­son died lat­er at hos­pi­tal.

Juter­am said his mu­nic­i­pal of­fi­cers are al­so work­ing with the TTPS East­ern Di­vi­sion. Se­nior of­fi­cers con­firmed that pa­trols and sur­veil­lance in the ar­eas are on­go­ing. — Re­port­ing by Ot­to Car­ring­ton