Eight months af­ter Keon Jack’s bloody death stained J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions in San Fer­nan­do, a teenag­er was ar­rest­ed for the mur­der.

The 19-year-old man, who has been on po­lice’s radar for in­volve­ment in crim­i­nal be­hav­iour, was held af­ter months of in­quiries by homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tors. He was al­so one of 53 peo­ple held dur­ing Op­er­a­tion Strike Back, in the South­ern Di­vi­sion on Thurs­day.

On Feb­ru­ary 12, Jack, 21, of Ste Madeleine was lim­ing with friends along Cipero Street, San Fer­nan­do when a gun­man opened fire on the group. The crowd that had gath­ered for the J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions scat­tered and when his friends re­turned to the area, they found him bleed­ing on the road. He was tak­en to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where he died.

Dur­ing the op­er­a­tion, po­lice, along with the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, ar­rest­ed 20 il­le­gal im­mi­grants in Palmiste. Three pri­or­i­ty of­fend­ers, who were want­ed by po­lice for up to five years, were al­so held for traf­fick­ing mar­i­jua­na, am­mu­ni­tion pos­ses­sion and rob­beries.

The op­er­a­tion which was co­or­di­nat­ed and su­per­vised by Snr Supt Zamsheed Mo­hammed, Supt Yus­suff Gaf­far, ASP Ro­han Par­dassie and ASP Pe­ter Ramdeen was car­ried out be­tween 1 am and 9 am on Thurs­day.

A to­tal of 63 per­sons were held, 64 tick­ets were is­sued, nine drug blocks searched and 79 war­rants were ex­e­cut­ed. A to­tal of 18.2 grammes of co­caine, 544 grams of mar­i­jua­na and nine rounds of .9 mm am­mu­ni­tion were seized. One stolen ve­hi­cle was re­cov­ered.