Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

A Rio Claro fam­i­ly is call­ing on po­lice to act swift­ly and ar­rest the sus­pect be­hind what they be­lieve was an ar­son at­tack that de­stroyed a house and two trucks on Mon­day morn­ing.

The ear­ly-morn­ing blaze, which oc­curred some­time be­fore 7 am along Cu­napo South­ern Main Road in Cuche Vil­lage, gut­ted a four-bed­room house and two trucks. Rel­a­tives be­lieve the in­ci­dent stemmed from a fam­i­ly feud over prop­er­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly the house that was de­stroyed. Navin Rat­tan, who lives next door and owned one of the de­stroyed trucks, said he was asleep with his daugh­ter when he was awak­ened by the sound of crack­ling flames. “I was sleep­ing with my daugh­ter on the bed right where my daugh­ter is. That win­dow buss with that heat—that win­dow could have fall on my daugh­ter face,” he re­called.

Rat­tan said he im­me­di­ate­ly ran out­side to try to move his trucks. One of the trucks, which be­longed to an­oth­er rel­a­tive, had no bat­tery and could not be moved. His own truck failed to start, but his mi­ni ex­ca­va­tor, which was par­tial­ly dam­aged, even­tu­al­ly start­ed, and he was able to move it. He suf­fered mi­nor burns on his left shoul­der in the process.

Rat­tan claimed he saw the al­leged sus­pect run­ning from the house and said the man was laugh­ing. He added that for months he had been re­ceiv­ing threats, but po­lice failed to act. Rat­tan’s wife de­scribed the ex­pe­ri­ence as ter­ri­fy­ing. She said she had just fed her chick­ens and was re­turn­ing in­side when she saw flames com­ing from the house.

“It very scary, I feel like I can’t sleep at night. It is very trau­ma­tis­ing. I see my house could ah burn down as well. Thank­ful for the neigh­bours, the vil­lagers who came out and help wet, help re­move ceil­ing, break down PVC, help move gas tank, help tote wa­ter...” she said.

She lament­ed that her hus­band could have lost his life if the ve­hi­cles had caught fire and ex­plod­ed while he was try­ing to move them. She ex­plained that her hus­band de­pends on his ve­hi­cle to “make an hon­est liv­ing”, and now their in­come is threat­ened.

Rat­tan’s un­cle, Rawl Ram­rat­tan, lived in the house but had al­ready left for work when the fire start­ed.

The house is owned by Rat­tan’s 74-year-old grand­moth­er, Has­ra Rat­tan, who had signed it over to her two grand­sons—a de­ci­sion the fam­i­ly be­lieves trig­gered the acts of ag­gres­sion.

The grand­moth­er al­so told Guardian Me­dia that the sus­pect had threat­ened rel­a­tives pre­vi­ous­ly and had even “pass a cut­lass” across her face. The el­der­ly woman said the in­ci­dent has left her feel­ing un­well. The fam­i­ly says they re­main fear­ful for their safe­ty. “We want jus­tice be­cause them po­lice in Biche they not do­ing any­thing...” com­plained Rat­tan.

Po­lice con­firmed that a 59-year-old man was de­tained in con­nec­tion with the in­ci­dent but was lat­er re­leased pend­ing fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions. Fire of­fi­cers have not yet con­firmed the cause of the blaze. An of­fi­cer at­tached to the Biche Po­lice Sta­tion de­nied claims that po­lice failed to act on pre­vi­ous re­ports made by the fam­i­ly.