Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Home in­va­sion vic­tim Vi­jay Ra­goo­nanan says he sup­ports the Gov­ern­ment’s stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion but in­sists that a stronger po­lice pres­ence is ur­gent­ly need­ed in com­mu­ni­ties.

On Tues­day, Ra­goo­nanan, his wife, and their five chil­dren were tied up and robbed by six armed in­trud­ers in their home, lo­cat­ed just a short dis­tance from the pri­vate res­i­dence of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

The ban­dits forced open the front door of their Philip­pine home and beat Ra­goo­nanan while threat­en­ing to kill his fam­i­ly. They es­caped with mon­ey, jew­ellery, and cell­phones.

Re­spond­ing to the in­ci­dent on Wednes­day, the Prime Min­is­ter not­ed that while crime sta­tis­tics had im­proved, many cit­i­zens still felt un­safe. She con­firmed that the stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion would be brought to Par­lia­ment be­fore year-end.

Ra­goo­nanan was ap­pre­hen­sive, how­ev­er, say­ing talk must be matched by ac­tion.

“You know talk­ing is one thing and do­ing the ac­tion is two big dif­fer­ent (thing),” he said.

He added that for the mea­sure to be ef­fec­tive, the process for ob­tain­ing a firearm user’s li­cense shouldn’t be com­pli­cat­ed. “Yes, it can help… It will come like it put a lit­tle fear in the ban­dits be­cause they know if they come to break in­to any­body house, they will know at least, if they meet with fire with fire, they will be dealt with.”

How­ev­er, he called for a greater po­lice pres­ence in com­mu­ni­ties.

“In Trinidad, a lot of polic­ing have to take place. Some­times you want to do a crime, and you see a po­lice park up there. Even if he just park up there, you would think twice. But if you don’t have noth­ing?

Like that day when this thing hap­pen, is like 25 to 30 min­utes, but it feel like hours and you don’t have no help.”

The 53-year-old gar­den­er said his chil­dren, ages sev­en to 23, re­mained trau­ma­tised and may need coun­selling. The two youngest chil­dren have not gone to school.

“A lot of peo­ple call and say sor­ry how the chil­dren have to go through this thing. The chil­dren fright­en. Whole night they can’t sleep,” he said.

He said some neigh­bours as­sist­ed them, and Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal gave them a ham­per. How­ev­er, Ra­goo­nanan said, no one from the Prime Min­is­ter’s of­fice has con­tact­ed them. Po­lice have iden­ti­fied a lead in the case, and Ra­goo­nanan has ex­pressed sat­is­fac­tion with the in­ves­ti­ga­tion so far. He is hope­ful that the men who ter­rorised his fam­i­ly will be brought to jus­tice.

San Fer­nan­do po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.