Shas­tri Boodan

GML Cor­re­spon­dent

Two men were killed by po­lice fol­low­ing an ex­er­cise Car­li Bay, Cou­va, yes­ter­day.

Po­lice said a team led by Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Sr Supt Bhag­wan­deen, along with of­fi­cers of the Home In­va­sion Task Force, An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Squad and Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Task Force, were re­spond­ing to an in­ci­dent at Per­ry Street, Per­se­ver­ance Road, around 7.30 am.

Of­fi­cers re­port­ed­ly en­coun­tered a group of men in­side a Nis­san Ti­i­da who opened fire on them. The po­lice re­turned fire, hit­ting 45-year-old Ja­son Hi­laire, of East­ern Quar­ry, Laven­tille.

Hi­laire was tak­en to the Cou­va Dis­trict Hos­pi­tal, where he lat­er died.

The oth­er men re­port­ed­ly fled the scene, prompt­ing po­lice to launch a man­hunt, in­clud­ing the de­ploy­ment of drones to as­sist in the search.

Dur­ing the op­er­a­tion, 41-year-old Nixon Stew­art, al­so of Laven­tille, was con­front­ed by po­lice in an over­grown lot along near­by Pe­ter Street.

Po­lice said Stew­art opened fire on of­fi­cers as he at­tempt­ed to evade cap­ture. He was shot and sub­se­quent­ly died at the Cou­va Dis­trict Hos­pi­tal.

Three oth­er men were de­tained dur­ing the op­er­a­tion. One was re­port­ed­ly found in a Toy­ota Corol­la Cross parked along Per­se­ver­ance Road.

Po­lice al­so seized three firearms and a quan­ti­ty of am­mu­ni­tion. Two of the men in cus­tody are known to the po­lice as re­peat of­fend­ers, ac­cord­ing to in­ves­ti­ga­tors.

Mean­while, res­i­dents of the area ex­pressed frus­tra­tion over what they de­scribed as an in­flux of crim­i­nals us­ing Per­se­ver­ance Vil­lage and Car­li Bay as hide­outs.

Some res­i­dents said they in­tend to seek a meet­ing with the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to dis­cuss mea­sures to ad­dress crime in the com­mu­ni­ty.

One pro­pos­al is for the area to be des­ig­nat­ed as spe­cial op­er­a­tions zone un­til crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty is brought un­der con­trol.

One res­i­dent told Guardian Me­dia that the po­lice re­sponse was nec­es­sary and wel­comed the of­fi­cers’ ef­forts.

“As far as what I see this morn­ing, the po­lice is do­ing their job and we need that down here,” the res­i­dent said.