Brent Zephyrine

Pan­day said his in­ten­tion was not to get in­volved in "a racial ar­gu­ment" and that the re­al ques­tion ought to sur­round whether Mo­hammed had spo­ken the truth. "If what Mr Nizam is say­ing is true, then we have a prob­lem in the so­ci­ety and it has a right to de­ter­mine that prob­lem and to take re­me­di­al ac­tion," he added. Asked whether he felt there was a log­i­cal ex­pla­na­tion which may have ad­dressed the is­sue of eth­nic im­bal­ance with­in the Po­lice Ser­vice, Pan­day said it was pos­si­ble to look at it from an his­tor­i­cal stand­point but was not sure whether those cir­cum­stances ex­ist­ed to­day. "If that is so, let us ex­am­ine it. Maybe it used to be so a long time ago, maybe it is not now, I don't know," Pan­day said.

Row­ley's take on the is­sue...

When in­ter­viewed yes­ter­day, Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley con­tend­ed that while there may be per­sons with "a cer­tain racial com­po­si­tion" in the hi­er­ar­chy of the Po­lice Ser­vice, there was dan­ger in ex­clud­ing the rea­son as to why that was so. "Yes you have cer­tain peo­ple at the top who have a cer­tain racial com­po­si­tion but in the ab­sence of a prop­er ex­pla­na­tion, you can get mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion and that's the prob­lem we have," he said. Row­ley, in giv­ing his "ex­pla­na­tion", sought to dis­tin­guish his­tor­i­cal facts from any per­cep­tion of an in­ten­tion­al eth­nic im­bal­ance with­in the Po­lice Ser­vice. He said: "Twen­ty to 25 years ago there were not very many East In­di­ans com­ing through the sys­tem and those who came through went as high as com­mis­sion­er (of po­lice) and some are still in the sys­tem and they will rise to the top as any­body else. "Talk about eth­nic im­bal­ance and racial dis­crim­i­na­tion and mer­i­toc­ra­cy and po­lice ex­ams is cast­ing as­per­sions on peo­ple."