Resh­ma Ra­goonath

He may have been part of the team that draft­ed the An­ti-Gang Act. How­ev­er, for­mer min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sub­has Pan­day now says the law should be re­viewed. Pan­day made the com­ment yes­ter­day as sev­er­al peo­ple ap­peared be­fore mag­is­trates around the coun­try charged with be­ing gang mem­bers un­der the leg­is­la­tion. The for­mer min­is­ter, speak­ing with re­porters out­side the San Fer­nan­do Supreme Court, called the leg­is­la­tion "dra­con­ian."

He said: "I have one re­gret in the An­ti-Gang leg­is­la­tion...I have one re­gret in that when the leg­is­la­tion was passed, we did not put in any mech­a­nisms to pre­vent abuse. "Now they pur­sue oth­er process­es to show the abuse but, in hind­sight now, the leg­is­la­tion is too dra­con­ian," he lament­ed. Un­der the act, gang-re­lat­ed of­fences are non-bail­able.

Peo­ple charged would re­main in cus­tody for 120 days pend­ing the start of their court mat­ters. How­ev­er, if with­in the 120 days, the mat­ter is not start­ed, the ac­cused has the right to ap­ply to a judge in cham­ber for bail. Pan­day said: "We are now in a state of emer­gency. I be­lieve that in due course they should look at the leg­is­la­tion right. Now the pop­u­la­tion wants ac­tion and you can­not ob­ject to that, but at the same time if you are re­spon­si­ble and you are sure the rogue el­e­ment in the po­lice force do not take ad­van­tage of the law."