Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter falling vic­tim to crim­i­nals six times in just five years, a frus­trat­ed Bar­rack­pore farmer is call­ing on au­thor­i­ties to re­store reg­u­lar po­lice pa­trols in the farm­ing com­mu­ni­ty and to fast-track the ap­proval process for Firearm User’s Li­cences (FULs).

Still vis­i­bly shak­en at his home yes­ter­day, 64-year-old Ramesh Harnar­ine said that on Tues­day, he re­turned home to find his house ran­sacked and his pel­let gun and wack­er miss­ing.

Harnar­ine, who rears live­stock and plants crops in the Cun­jal Food Crop Project, said it was not the first time he had fall­en prey to crim­i­nals, but he be­lieves that had he been at home that day, he would have been at­tacked.

He said CCTV footage showed three men, armed with a knife, cut­lass and firearm, en­ter­ing his prop­er­ty. They left be­hind a piece of rope and a knife. He said that around 12.30 pm on Tues­day, he left with a friend and re­turned about 6 pm.

“When I come home I miss my wack­er. I see this rope on the ground. This is not my rope. I feel they come to tie me up... my as­sump­tion they were com­ing to put a good lick­ing on me, oth­er­wise kill me.”

Just last week, he said some­one stole his cut­lass and pow­er bank from his home. He claimed that about a month ago, some­one threw poi­son in his pond at the back of his house, caus­ing his tilapia fish and some of his ducks and chick­ens to die.

Harnar­ine al­so re­called that about five years ago, 250 of his full-grown ducks were stolen.

Com­plain­ing that the last time he saw Prae­di­al Lar­ce­ny of­fi­cers pa­trolling the com­mu­ni­ty was in March, he be­lieves a strong po­lice pres­ence would ward off crim­i­nals.

He claimed that the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment had promised them firearms, but he was told that their ap­pli­ca­tions had been lost.

“I want to tell them in my sit­u­a­tion, I look­ing for­ward to get a firearm be­cause is I alone here and the rest of the farm­ers al­so be­cause where they start by me, they will start all over and just re­cent­ly they thief co­conut and fig.”

Harnar­ine said that an­oth­er is­sue was that a sec­tion of the com­mu­ni­ty, in­clud­ing where he lived, still had no elec­tric­i­ty con­nec­tion.

Mean­while, Shi­va Mo­hammed, vice pres­i­dent of the Cun­jal Food Crop Project, re­called that fol­low­ing their protest in 2020 call­ing for FULs, on­ly some farm­ers were suc­cess­ful.

With over 300 acres of farm­ing land and more than 100 farm­ers with­in the project, he lament­ed, “The farm­ers like sit­ting ducks in their homes be­cause their liveli­hoods are in Cun­jal Food Crop project it­self, and they de­pend on this to live.”

Mo­hammed said they once had a reg­u­lar pres­ence of prae­di­al lar­ce­ny of­fi­cers with­in the project, but for the last three months, there have been none. He added that they had lob­bied for elec­tric­i­ty, but they on­ly re­ceived a par­tial sup­ply.

Mo­hammed claimed Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Ravi Rat­ti­ram and their MP, Michelle Ben­jamin, the Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, are aware of their chal­lenges, and he is call­ing on them and, by ex­ten­sion, the Gov­ern­ment, to bring some re­lief to the farm­ers.

Min­is­ter Rat­ti­ram did not re­spond to a re­quest from Guardian Me­dia for com­ment on the mat­ter.