RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tors have start­ed tak­ing state­ments from mem­bers of the T&T De­fence Force in con­nec­tion with the Galil as­sault ri­fle that is miss­ing from Teteron Bar­racks.

So far, there has been no break­through in the case and there is grow­ing con­cern that the high-pow­ered weapon might al­ready be out on the streets. The Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty is of­fer­ing a $75,000 re­ward to any­one who can pro­vide in­for­ma­tion that will lead to the re­cov­ery of the ri­fle and the ar­rest and pros­e­cu­tion of per­sons re­spon­si­ble for the dis­ap­pear­ance from the army bar­racks in Ch­aguara­mas.

Any­one with in­for­ma­tion can call 555 or 800 TIPS.

On Sun­day Lt Col Ashook Singh, act­ing Com­mand­ing Of­fi­cer of the T&T Reg­i­ment, re­port­ed that at about 12.30 am a sol­dier re­port­ed that the ri­fle as­signed to him was miss­ing.

An ex­ten­sive in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tion in­volv­ing mem­bers of the TTDF and the po­lice is cur­rent­ly un­der­way.

Up to late yes­ter­day, Teteron Bar­racks re­mained on lock­down as in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the miss­ing ri­fle in­ten­si­fied.