Ralph Ban­warie

Noise pol­lu­tion, school vi­o­lence, drug abuse and il­le­gal squat­ting were among the long list of griev­ances raised by res­i­dents at a po­lice town meet­ing host­ed by the San­gre Grande Po­lice Sta­tion at Swa­ha Hin­du Col­lege on Cu­napo South­ern Main Road on Thurs­day evening.

Se­nior cit­i­zens com­plained that the play­ing of loud mu­sic was hav­ing a se­vere im­pact on their health, while oth­ers ac­cused po­lice of ig­nor­ing their re­ports or even pro­tect­ing those re­spon­si­ble. Res­i­dents al­so raised con­cerns about a lack of mo­bile and foot pa­trols, il­le­gal vend­ing, bul­ly­ing in schools, PH dri­vers trans­port­ing chil­dren, fights on the streets, drug use among stu­dents, and the gen­er­al safe­ty of their com­mu­ni­ties.

One res­i­dent, Mrs Khan, said the noise has robbed her of peace in re­tire­ment. “The mu­sic vi­brates my home caus­ing me not to have some peace and en­joy my re­tire­ment. I sel­dom sleep as the mu­sic will blast as ear­ly as 6 am and late as mid­night,” she told of­fi­cers. She added that those re­spon­si­ble boast­ed they con­trolled the po­lice, and said a fe­male of­fi­cer was rude and dis­mis­sive when she tried to com­plain. Khan sug­gest­ed that the se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent set aside days to meet the pub­lic, to which Snr Supt Christo­pher Pa­ponette re­spond­ed that while he was “not a politi­cian,” res­i­dents could vis­it his of­fice with­out an ap­point­ment.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Camp­bell of North­east­ern Set­tle­ment, broke down as he de­scribed how re­peat­ed ex­po­sure to loud mu­sic was af­fect­ing his health. He said he made 20 re­ports with­out re­sponse. “Po­lice should in­ter­vene and solve this prob­lem,” he plead­ed. Pa­ponette re­ferred him to Cpl Bai­ju­ram for fol­low-up.

A taxi dri­ver claimed that some of­fi­cers were col­lud­ing with gangs and urged an in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Oth­er res­i­dents high­light­ed grow­ing dis­re­spect and vi­o­lence among school­child­ren, il­le­gal quar­ry­ing, and the spread of squat­ting. For­mer po­lice sergeant and cur­rent coun­cil­lor Elvis Guy said he was dis­turbed by the be­hav­iour of chil­dren and the unchecked de­struc­tion of the Aripo Sa­van­nah by squat­ters near Xtra Foods.

Phar­ma­cist Ri­car­do Mo­hammed, head in­spec­tor of the Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal Board, warned that chil­dren were mix­ing cough syrup Tus­cosed Linc­tus with soft drinks to get high, a con­coc­tion known as “lean.” He said the mix­ture was dan­ger­ous and could im­pair cog­ni­tive abil­i­ty, warn­ing shops that they risked los­ing their li­cences if caught sell­ing the prod­uct to mi­nors.

San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Ken­wyn Phillip ap­pealed for bet­ter work­ing con­di­tions for po­lice of­fi­cers, point­ing out that of­fi­cers in Man­zanil­la and Matelot were still housed in con­tain­ers de­spite promis­es since 2016 to build prop­er sta­tions. He said he hoped the up­com­ing bud­get would fi­nal­ly ad­dress the is­sue.

MP for Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la and par­lia­men­tary sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Shiv­an­na Sam promised ef­forts would be made to pro­vide more re­sources for po­lice in San­gre Grande.

In­sp Al­is­ter Kistow, who al­so ad­dressed the meet­ing, said the TTPS was work­ing with lim­it­ed man­pow­er but re­mained com­mit­ted to keep­ing the dis­trict safe. “If you see some­thing, say some­thing. If you hear some­thing, say some­thing. Crime is every­body’s busi­ness,” he said.

Oth­er se­nior of­fi­cers present in­clud­ed Ag Asp Rus­sell, In­sps Harp­er, Cal­en­der, Steel and Ramkissoon, Sgt Gor­don, and Cpl Bai­ju­ram. PC Fe­lix Per­sad chaired the meet­ing.