Derek Achong

Res­i­dents of Beetham Gar­dens yes­ter­day blocked both lanes of the Beetham High­way in a fiery protest which caused a mas­sive grid­lock for mo­torists leav­ing Port-of-Spain dur­ing the af­ter­noon rush hour. The pur­pose and rea­son­ing be­hind the protest re­mained un­clear up to last night.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, short­ly af­ter 5 pm, the res­i­dents be­gan block­ing sev­er­al sec­tions of the east and west-bound lanes of the Beetham High­way with rub­ble, tyres, pieces of wood and met­al. Eye­wit­ness­es told po­lice the res­i­dents then set fire to the de­bris bring­ing ve­hic­u­lar traf­fic on both lanes to a halt.

With­in min­utes traf­fic backed up from In­de­pen­dence Square and Wright­son Road to the Barataria Fly­over. Scores of dri­vers were forced to di­vert to the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route and East­ern Main Road to evade the grid­lock. When a news team from the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed the area where the protest orig­i­nat­ed, hos­tile res­i­dents re­fused to speak with the me­dia.

Po­lice ar­rived at the scene short­ly af­ter the fire be­gan and by 6.15 pm the of­fi­cers, along with fire­fight­ers, man­aged to put it out, move the de­bris and re­store traf­fic on both lanes to nor­mal. Heav­i­ly-armed po­lice of­fi­cers, led by Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mervyn Richard­son, were seen pa­trolling the high­way and the Beetham com­mu­ni­ty while keep­ing a watch­ful eye on res­i­dents. The po­lice even­tu­al­ly left.

How­ev­er, the res­i­dents re­turned and blocked the high­way with burn­ing de­bris around 8 pm caus­ing pan­ic among dri­vers. Traf­fic al­so back up again for sev­er­al miles. The po­lice and fire of­fi­cers again re­spond­ed. Po­lice said there were no re­ports of rob­beries from dri­vers who were stuck in the bumper-to- bumper traf­fic for more than two hours dur­ing the ear­li­er in­ci­dent.