Po­lice ar­rest­ed the head of the High­way Reroute Move­ment Dr Wayne Kublals­ingh and wrecked his ve­hi­cle from a high­way con­struc­tion site at Mon De­sir in Fyz­abad af­ter he at­tempt­ed to stop ex­ca­va­tors from bull­doz­ing forests on pri­vate lands Sat­ur­day.

Dr Kublals­ingh had been called in­to the area by res­i­dent Tara Chaitoo af­ter the heavy equip­ment rolled in­to Roots Av­enue, Branch Trace and be­gan bull­doz­ing lands which res­i­dents say have not yet been ac­quired by the State.

Chaitoo who lives next to the site said at least five res­i­dents owned lands in that area and the State had not paid a cent to ac­quire it.

One res­i­dent Phillis Pri­am said, "They have al­ready cleared down half an acre of my land and I have not re­ceived a sin­gle cent. I don't mind if they build­ing the high­way but res­i­dents must be prop­er­ly com­pen­sat­ed."

She ex­plained that no­body has ne­go­ti­at­ed with her and when she con­front­ed the con­trac­tor to en­quire why they were on her lands, she was told that some­one from the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (NID­CO) will be in touch with her.

An­oth­er res­i­dent Sanker Lal­man said he had to chase away high­way con­struc­tion work­ers from his lands by threat­en­ing them with a cut­lass.

"They take half of my gar­den land and now they want to take the spot I am liv­ing on," Lal­man said.

Asked whether he was com­pen­sat­ed, Lal­man said, "They give me noth­ing! They bold­face. They rude! They no good! They mash down my cas­sa­va, my co­conut trees and they bring some pa­per to say they tak­ing my house. I pull out my cut­lass and tell them I have pa­pers too. What I give them with this, they will take," Lal­man said ges­tur­ing with his blade.

When Guardian Me­dia ar­rived on the site, Dr Kublals­ingh was seen sit­ting on a green stool at the site. Three ve­hi­cles had blocked the path of the ex­ca­va­tors.

About a dozen po­lice of­fi­cers led by In­sp Pe­ter Ramdeen ad­vised Dr Kublals­ingh to re­move the ve­hi­cles. Two of the res­i­dents lat­er com­plied but Dr Kublals­ingh stood his ground. The car was even­tu­al­ly wrecked and tak­en to the Fyz­abad po­lice sta­tion.

Kublals­ingh said based on a re­cent court rul­ing, the Gov­ern­ment was free to work on any part of the Debe to Mon De­sir seg­ment of the high­way.

How­ev­er, he said they were not al­lowed to move in on pri­vate lands which have not yet been ac­quired. He said un­der the Land Ac­qui­si­tion Act, Sec­tion 4 and 5 no­tices ex­pires in six months and the last time no­tices were served was in 2014. He said Sec­tion 3 no­tices re­lat­ed to scop­ing works and sur­vey­ing.
Be­cause no sur­veys and soil tests had been done on the lands with­in re­cent times and no new no­tices were served, Kublals­ingh said it was il­le­gal for the State to come on pri­vate lands and ex­ca­vate.

"If they say they have the rel­e­vant Sec­tion 4 no­tices, show me the Sec­tion 3 or 4 no­tices which are up­dat­ed. Show it to me," Kublals­ingh said.

How­ev­er, In­sp Ramdeen said he had pe­rused doc­u­ments from NID­CO and was sat­is­fied that the State was act­ing with­in the law. 
None of these doc­u­ments was pro­vid­ed to res­i­dents or the me­dia.

Ramdeen said the no­tices served had not ex­pired be­cause works had been on­go­ing by the State.
Af­ter the cars were wrecked, two ex­ca­va­tors then lum­bered for­ward to­wards Kublals­ingh. He walked in front of the ma­chin­ery. Ramdeen lat­er ad­vised him to re­move him­self and he re­fused. He was then placed un­der ar­rest and tak­en to the near­by po­lice ve­hi­cle. At no time did any of the res­i­dents stand with him as he con­front­ed the po­lice.

How­ev­er, Tara Chaitoo broke down in tears say­ing she re­gret­ted call­ing Kublals­ingh.

"He did not get a chance to eat break­fast or lunch and they ar­rest him. I am sor­ry I called him yes­ter­day to say they had start­ed bull­doz­ing the trees. If I didn't call him, he would not have been ar­rest­ed," she sobbed.

Chaitoo al­so said that many res­i­dents had not re­ceived any monies for their lands.
Res­i­dent Faiz Ramjohn said NID­CO should have spo­ken to the res­i­dents and brought proof of their claims.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Min­is­ter of Works Ro­han Sinanan said he could not re­spond based on in­for­ma­tion re­ceived from the Guardian. He said the mat­ter was be­ing dealt with by NID­CO. Sinanan said he was ex­pect­ed to re­ceive a re­port on the mat­ter and will is­sue a fur­ther com­ment once he is ap­prised of the sit­u­a­tion.