Geisha Kow­lessar

High­way Re-Route Move­ment leader Dr Wayne Kublals­ingh was made to sit on a plas­tic chair on Gray Street, St Clair with just an um­brel­la over his head, block­ing out the scorch­ing sun yes­ter­day. Kublals­ingh and his sup­port­ers were pre­vent­ed from erect­ing a tent on the pave­ment out­side the Port-of-Spain of­fice of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar as they first did 11 days ago.

Yes­ter­day marked day 12 of Kublals­ingh's hunger strike. At 7.30 am mem­bers of the Guard and Emer­gency Branch (GEB) placed met­al bar­ri­ers along the perime­ter of the prime min­is­ter's of­fice at Gray Street and St Clair Av­enue and at Sweet Bri­ar Road and Gray Street block­ing the flow of traf­fic along that route.

One of­fi­cer said the po­lice were giv­en in­struc­tions "from the very top" that no ve­hic­u­lar traf­fic was to be al­lowed close to the prime min­is­ter's of­fi­cer as the mea­sure was to beef up se­cu­ri­ty around the build­ing. Pedes­tri­an traf­fic was al­so re­strict­ed on the pave­ment where Kublals­ingh's camp was pre­vi­ous­ly set up.

As the of­fi­cers stood guard along the pave­ment, mem­bers of the me­dia who were stand­ing on the edge of the pave­ment were al­so or­dered to "get off" by po­lice and were al­so threat­ened with ar­rest in they did not com­ply with in­struc­tions. The move how­ev­er, did not damp­en Kublals­ingh's spir­its.

Kublals­ingh barred from PM's of­fice

In­stead of ar­riv­ing just af­ter 10am as he nor­mal­ly did, Kublals­ingh came in an am­bu­lance at 11.25 pm at the Gray Street and St Clair Av­enue en­trance. With the as­sis­tance of his nurse, Na­tal­ie Fran­cois, Kublals­ingh sat on a chair in the mid­dle of Gray Street with a copy of the Hin­du holy book, the Bha­gavad Gi­ta and a branch of the tul­si plant on his lap.

The tul­si or In­di­an holy basil is an im­por­tant sym­bol in the Hin­du re­li­gious tra­di­tion as it is a ven­er­at­ed herb with many med­i­c­i­nal prop­er­ties. At in­ter­vals, Kublals­ingh placed his head on a pil­low which was on Fran­cois' lap and closed his eyes. At 11.27 pm, the po­lice moved the bar­ri­ers, al­low­ing traf­fic to flow freely but main­tained a strong pres­ence along the pave­ment.

But Kublals­ingh was vis­i­bly an­gry he was not al­lowed to re­turn to the pave­ment and al­so ques­tioned the po­lice's mo­tive. "Why they move me from there? If they put me back from there that's fine. Why they want to open the road now? Could any­body ask what they move us from there?" Kublals­ingh asked his sup­port­ers.

As Kublals­ingh con­tin­ued to greet the 20-odd well-wish­ers who sur­round­ed him, the po­lice be­came more in­sis­tent that the group was ob­struct­ing traf­fic.