Yvonne Webb

Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Nizam Baksh is urg­ing his Mus­lim broth­ers and sis­ters not to fan flames of di­vi­sion with mem­bers of the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty.His call fol­lows an­ti-Mus­lim/Hin­du sen­ti­ments in re­sponse to rev­e­la­tion of an al­leged plot to as­sas­si­nate Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and three mem­bers of her Cab­i­net.Sev­er­al of the per­sons served with de­ten­tion or­ders in con­nec­tion with the al­leged plot are mem­bers of the Mus­lim faith.As a re­sult, some in­di­vid­u­als and Is­lam­ic or­gan­i­sa­tions have ex­pressed con­cern that they were be­ing tar­get­ed by the Gov­ern­ment whose mem­bers were pre­dom­i­nant­ly Hin­dus.In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Baksh, the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Na­pari­ma, called on fel­low Mus­lims to "let jus­tice take its course."

He con­demned those who have ex­pressed scep­ti­cism about the threats.He added: "This is in­for­ma­tion that came from se­cu­ri­ty sources and be­cause of its sen­si­tive na­ture, not all of the de­tails have been shared with all of the mem­bers of Cab­i­net."If the se­cu­ri­ty forces did not have in­for­ma­tion they would not have act­ed in the man­ner in which they did."Baksh said: "I am a Mus­lim and I am in the Cab­i­net of the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go and there is no an­i­mos­i­ty or ill-will to­wards me in the Cab­i­net."He said the fact that mem­bers of his faith have been de­tained was not af­fect­ing him.

He cau­tioned against com­men­taries which were fan­ning the flames of ha­tred among cit­i­zens of dif­fer­ent re­li­gious de­nom­i­na­tions.Baksh said as a cit­i­zen and mem­ber of the Cab­i­net he puts coun­try first."Any threat to the Prime Min­is­ter and mem­bers of her Cab­i­net is a threat to the coun­try and peo­ple have to un­der­stand and ap­pre­ci­ate that and act ac­cord­ing­ly," he said.He added that in the cir­cum­stances where there is a threat "any se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures un­der­tak­en will re­dound to the ben­e­fit of all of T&T not on­ly those named as the tar­get."

Re­fer­ring to com­ments at­trib­uted to Is­lam­ic Front leader Umar Ab­dul­lah that they would do what­ev­er it took to deal with the ar­rests of mem­bers of the Mus­lim faith, Baksh said:"Too many peo­ple get on the air­waves and make com­ments be­cause they have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to do so."They make rad­i­cal com­ments and some­times com­ments that are out of line, just to get at­ten­tion."I want to tell those peo­ple that a wise head keeps a silent tongue. They need to speak less and fol­low the progress that is be­ing made."He added: "The Gov­ern­ment and the se­cu­ri­ty forces have to pro­tect the coun­try and our democ­ra­cy, our way of life, at what­ev­er cost."

Baksh said as a coun­try we took a lot of things for grant­ed. He re­ferred to threats pri­or to the 1990 coup at­tempt car­ried out by an Is­lam­ic sect."We have to learn from our ex­pe­ri­ences. There were sim­i­lar threats in 1990 but we nev­er act­ed on it. We took it for grant­ed that noth­ing like that would ever hap­pen here in this coun­try," he added.Baksh said this time around, "Gov­ern­ment will not sit on its lau­rels and think noth­ing will hap­pen."We will not do like the prover­bial os­trich and bury our heads in the sand. We have to pro­tect our coun­try at all costs," he said.