SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Con­cerned res­i­dents of Mon­trose and en­vi­rons in Ch­agua­nas are de­mand­ing that po­lice do more to re­duce the in­creas­ing crime in the area. 

Res­i­dents held a town meet­ing with se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers of the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion on Wednes­day night, at the Sig­na­ture Hall, Mon­trose.

Res­i­dents said all they get from po­lice are ex­cus­es in­stead of ac­tion.

Al­lan Fer­gu­son, res­i­dent of the com­mu­ni­ty and head of the Scrap Iron Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, said the po­lice did not de­serve all the blame. Fer­gu­son called on per­sons not to turn a blind eye to crime and crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

Adam Ho­sein, a busi­ness­man from the area, said the Long­denville Po­lice Post does not have a work­ing phone. He said last Thurs­day, when Dar­ryl Din­di­al was mur­dered out­side his busi­ness place, the E999 ser­vice was not work­ing.

Re­call­ing the in­ci­dent, Ho­sein said af­ter Din­di­al was shot, he called his fa­ther Tony Ho­sein, as well as the E999, “…on­ly to hear, ‘you have reached emer­gency 999, please hold’. For 20 min­utes.”

Ho­sein said no sup­port came from the po­lice at that time and the res­i­dents had to rush Din­di­al to the health cen­tre where he died.

“No Emer­gency 999 could an­swer any phone,” he stat­ed.

Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Kurt Si­mon said the non-work­ing phone at the Long­denville Po­lice Post was out of the re­mit of the Po­lice Ser­vice.

“The Long­denville phone sit­u­a­tion is a sit­u­a­tion ex­ist­ing for the longest while,” he ad­mit­ted.  “We have been try­ing to have that rec­ti­fied with the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ty who is not the TTPS. The TTPS does not in­stall phones.  We do not put up phone wires.”

The Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent called on mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty to look in­wards.

“The pub­lic does not want to hear the po­lice say­ing to them that you have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty too,” Si­mon said.

“When a po­lice of­fi­cer is bribed, usu­al­ly it is not an­oth­er po­lice of­fi­cer brib­ing him,” he ob­served.  “When a po­lice of­fi­cer is in a rum shop drink­ing free rum, usu­al­ly it is not a po­lice of­fi­cer own­ing the rum shop and giv­ing him free rum so that you could have him there in your pres­ence for some sort of free se­cu­ri­ty.”

Si­mon con­tin­ued: “When a po­lice of­fi­cer comes to a busi­ness to buy, but the busi­ness­man re­fus­es to ac­cept his mon­ey—and don’t tell me no, be­cause it hap­pened to me and I said, ‘Look take your mon­ey. I’m pay­ing’… And that is why I can’t say I bought any­thing in Cen­tral be­cause I don’t want any­body giv­ing me any­thing free…  But there is civ­il re­spon­si­bil­i­ty… And you will say, ‘What does that have to do with crime?’ Per­haps noth­ing, but per­haps a whole lot, be­cause if we in our own selves are pre­pared to be so small mind­ed to try to cap­ti­vate us, then what else are we do­ing? When we are try­ing to cap­ti­vate the po­lice, are we try­ing to hide some­thing we are do­ing?”

The se­nior cop added: “Yes, you can make noise.  We can re­spond too; we are re­spond­ing. I have heard you all and you have blamed us.  You have blamed us for the rob­beries.  You have blamed us for the mur­ders.  You have blamed us for our tele­phone line.  You have blamed us for the num­ber of per­sons who are po­lice of­fi­cers.”  

At this point, busi­ness­man Adam Ho­sein told Si­mon his speak­ing time was up.  How­ev­er, Sunil Moone­sar, an ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber of the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (CCIC), asked that Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Si­mon con­tin­ue and tell the pub­lic about pos­si­ble so­lu­tions.

Snr Supt Si­mon said the TTPS has launched its 2022-2024 Strate­gic Ac­tion Plan that com­pris­es five main pil­lars which in­volve tech­nol­o­gy, hu­man well­ness, pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment of the po­lice, and com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment. He said the ‘ac­tion items’ in­clude out­reach in the form of town meet­ings, youth clubs and walk­a­bouts. He said in­creased train­ing would give the po­lice the added edge in crime solv­ing.

Snr Supt Si­mon al­so re­vealed the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion is un­der­go­ing changes with re­spect to its in­ves­tiga­tive process­es.

Ac­cord­ing to the se­nior cop, the Di­vi­sion has now es­tab­lished a ca­pa­ble Gang Unit that gath­ers in­tel­li­gence in the Di­vi­sion, as well as an ac­tive Com­mu­ni­ty Polic­ing Unit that tar­gets at-risk groups—es­pe­cial­ly per­sons liv­ing in trou­bled house­holds. He said po­lice al­so would be li­ais­ing with re­gion­al bod­ies to re­duce hid­ing spots for crim­i­nals.

“Po­lice are step­ping out of our tra­di­tion­al role and en­ter­ing in­to roles of so­cial work, try­ing to en­cour­age the dif­fer­ent agen­cies that can part­ner with us,” Si­mon said.

Adam Ho­sein said the com­mu­ni­ty al­so was try­ing to form its own groups to deal with the crime sit­u­a­tion.

Sunil Moone­sar said he, too, was a vic­tim of crime.  He re­vealed that his wife was robbed while buy­ing veg­eta­bles, and that ban­dits had en­tered his home and stolen his car.

Moone­sar as­sert­ed that the CCIC was will­ing to as­sist in the bat­tle against crime and point­ed to the drone which the CCIC had do­nat­ed to the TTPS to as­sist in sur­veil­lance.  He al­so not­ed the CCIC has re­paired two po­lice ve­hi­cles and in­di­cat­ed there are spon­sors de­sirous of as­sist­ing with ve­hi­cle re­pairs. Moonasar al­so said the CCIC was al­so will­ing to pro­vide a cell phone for the Long­denville Po­lice Post.

The CCIC ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber warned of the grow­ing pres­ence of thieves who ride around on bi­cy­cles and pho­to­graph homes they plan to rob.  He called for a greater po­lice pres­ence in com­mu­ni­ties and co­op­er­a­tion with the po­lice.

Moonasar said the CCIC al­so wants the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to restart the process of is­su­ing firearms user li­cens­es

“We are faced dai­ly with trig­ger-hap­py crim­i­nals and trig­ger-hap­py ban­dits who would shoot with­out con­cern or care for their vic­tims and their fam­i­lies,” he stat­ed.

Moonasar said the CCIC is propos­ing a pub­lic/pri­vate part­ner­ship with the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to ex­pand its sur­veil­lance cam­era net­work. 

In­spec­tor Roger Ra­jku­mar shared with at­ten­dees the rel­e­vant emer­gency num­bers with which to con­tact the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Po­lice. He re­port­ed to res­i­dents that the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion has re­ceived five ve­hi­cles, and said those ve­hi­cles are be­ing used in com­mu­ni­ties where crimes are promi­nent.