The Tran­sit Po­lice Unit is be­ing re­con­struct­ed to over­see pro­tec­tion on the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der con­firmed this yes­ter­day, an­swer­ing Op­po­si­tion chief whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les’ ques­tion on what was be­ing done to pro­tect com­muters from rob­beries on roads fol­low­ing a re­cent string of rob­beries of maxi taxis along the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route (PBR).

Alexan­der said a meet­ing was held on Thurs­day with Route Two maxi taxis, and it was com­mu­ni­cat­ed to them as to how to go for­ward in terms of what is hap­pen­ing at the PBR.”

He said while Gon­za­les spoke of “rob­beries”, “All we have for the past is ten rob­beries last year and this one this year,” not­ing Wednes­day’s armed rob­bery of a maxi-taxi at Windy Hill in Arou­ca dur­ing rush-hour af­ter­noon traf­fic.

In that in­ci­dent, a 40-year-old dri­ver from Va­len­cia was ply­ing his 24-seater maxi-taxi along the PBR when he stopped around 4.45 pm at Five Rivers Junc­tion in Arou­ca to pick up a woman who had been dressed in full Mus­lim garb.

Up­on reach­ing the am­ber lights at the Bon Air West in­ter­sec­tion, the woman rang the bell to ex­it.

The dri­ver’s dash­cam showed that as he was col­lect­ing the fare from her, five men—one of whom was armed with a knife—en­tered the maxi and robbed the dri­ver of $300 in cash, as well as the pas­sen­gers of their be­long­ings, in­clud­ing hand­bags, mo­bile phones and parcels, be­fore run­ning away.

Alexan­der said the Tran­sit Po­lice Unite re­spon­si­ble for over­see­ing pro­tec­tion on the PBR were left to de­te­ri­o­rate for the past nine years. “At this time, the unit’s op­er­at­ing at al­most a skele­ton staff. It’s short by 60 men when sanc­tioned strength is over 120. We’ve in­stalled a su­per­in­ten­dent, di­rec­tors and be­gun re­con­struc­tion of the Tran­sit Po­lice,” he added. (GA)