Raphael John-Lall

raphael.lall@guardian.co.tt

Up to late yes­ter­day, no one had been held for the mur­der of PC Clarence Gilkes, the po­lice of­fi­cer killed dur­ing an ex­er­cise in Rich Plain, Diego Mar­tin, on Fri­day evening. Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob said 80 po­lice of­fi­cers, as­sist­ed by mem­ber of the T&T De­fence Force, are in­volved in the man­hunt for sus­pects in the hills from Rich Plain to Ch­aguara­mas.

In ad­di­tion, Pres­i­dent of the Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion In­sp Gideon Dick­son an­nounced that a re­ward of $20,000 is be­ing of­fered for in­for­ma­tion lead­ing to the cap­ture of those in­volved in Gilkes’ death.

How­ev­er, even as the hunt for sus­pects in­ten­si­fied, the TTPS was served with a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter af­ter a mosque in the area was al­leged­ly raid­ed and ran­sacked by po­lice of­fi­cers.

At­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing Imam Samaad Raz­zaq, leader of the Masjid al Hu­daa on Up­per Rich Plain Road, al­leged that po­lice of­fi­cers stormed the mosque at around 4 pm while mem­bers were prepar­ing meals for the break­ing of the Ra­masan fast.

They claimed in the let­ter that the of­fi­cers “be­gan act­ing in a very hos­tile man­ner un­doubt­ed­ly ag­gra­vat­ed by the fact that one of their col­leagues was in­jured in an in­ci­dent a short dis­tance away.”

Ac­cord­ing to the at­tor­neys, pots and con­tain­ers were over­turned in the kitchen, chillers that stored drinks were ran­sacked and de­spite pleas from the mem­bers, the po­lice of­fi­cers walked on the prayer ground and prayer mats with their shoes, then al­leged­ly over­turned a shelf with copies of the Holy Quran.

The po­lice of­fi­cers re­turned to the mosque around 8 am yes­ter­day, the laws fur­ther claimed, and mem­bers of the masjid were al­leged­ly phys­i­cal­ly as­sault­ed the phones of two mem­bers who at­tempt­ed to record the in­ci­dent were de­stroyed. They have asked the act­ing CoP to in­ves­ti­gate the in­ci­dents and ad­vise his of­fi­cers to avoid a re­peat.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, the TTPS said it re­spects all re­li­gious groups in T&T. Ja­cob said he took the al­le­ga­tions very se­ri­ous­ly, as of­fi­cers must re­spect all re­li­gious groups when they con­duct their du­ties. He added that per­sons were ag­griev­ed be­cause of the al­leged in­ci­dent, they should re­port the mat­ter and an in­ves­ti­ga­tion will be launched.

Gilkes was part of a team of 12 of­fi­cers from the West­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force who went to Rich­plain Road, Diego Mar­tin with a search war­rant for a man want­ed by the po­lice. At around 3 pm, while at the lo­ca­tion, of­fi­cers al­leged­ly came un­der heavy gun­fire. They took cov­er and re­turned fire at the as­sailants. PC Gilkes was hit in the cross­fire. He was placed in­to a po­lice ve­hi­cle and tak­en to the St. James In­fir­mary where he died while un­der­go­ing treat­ment.

Ja­cob, who vis­it­ed the scene on Fri­day night, lat­er told re­porters: “Cur­rent­ly we have 80 of­fi­cers who are on this ex­er­cise who are in the hills of Rich Plains straight across over the hills to Ch­aguara­mas to­geth­er with the De­fence Force in search of the as­sailants who com­mit­ted this das­tard­ly act. The Po­lice Ser­vice is in mourn­ing and I send con­do­lences to the of­fi­cer’s fam­i­ly. We are look­ing for­ward to see­ing how fast we could ar­rest these as­sailants.”

Dick­son de­scribed the death of Gilkes as a “great loss”.

“What we have wit­nessed here based on our in­for­ma­tion is an at­tack on law en­force­ment and we can­not ac­cept that. We will spare no course in bring­ing the per­pe­tra­tor to jus­tice. We have lost so much over the last two years with deaths from COVID, and now to come and lose a life in such a man­ner, is hard for us.

“It is an all-out as­sault on law en­force­ment. This was a man who lost his life in the line of du­ty. All he is do­ing is his job. His fam­i­ly will be wait­ing on him to come back home. So we can­not ac­cept this,” he said.