Gail Alexan­der

The Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen says it will "do what it has to do" in or­der to se­cure the re­lease of leader Imam Yasin Abu Bakr and they are pre­pared to keep vig­il out­side the Cen­tral Po­lice sta­tion with a larg­er crowd of peo­ple if Bakr is not re­leased af­ter 72 hours, by to­mor­row.

Sec­ond in com­mand and in­ter­im Ja­maat leader Lor­ris Bal­lack made that de­c­la­ra­tion yes­ter­day as a group of Ja­maat mem­bers, in­clud­ing women and chil­dren, stood out­side the Na­tion­al Li­brary, St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain, op­po­site the Cen­tral Po­lice Sta­tion where Bakr has been de­tained since Mon­day.

Bal­lack said: "I want to tell the Gov­ern­ment that the Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen will not give them the op­por­tu­ni­ty to call a state of emer­gency. We would not do that."

Bakr and eight mem­bers of his or­gan­i­sa­tion were de­tained ear­ly Mon­day as part of the on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mur­der of spe­cial state pros­e­cu­tor Dana See­ta­hal, SC.

She was ex­e­cut­ed in a "hit" around 12.04 am on May 4, 2014 when she was am­bushed by gun­men while re­turn­ing from the Ma Pau casi­no along Hamil­ton Hold­er Street to her One Wood­brook Place apart­ment.

Oth­ers al­so de­tained on Mon­day in­clude Imam Has­san Ali from the Cara­po mosque, the Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen's east­ern out­post, Hamid Ali, Sta­cy Ali, Sieforth Cum­mings, De­von Cum­mings, Ri­car­do Stew­art, Ke­ston Seales and De­on Pe­ters, Bal­lack said.

Yes­ter­day, on day two of Bakr's de­ten­tion, his col­leagues, await­ing his re­lease, gath­ered out­side the li­brary's foy­er op­po­site the Red House which group mem­bers in­vad­ed in their failed coup at­tempt on Ju­ly 27 1990.

Be­fore Bal­lack ar­rived, vet­er­an Mus­limeen mem­ber Kala Akii Bua led the group, chant­i­ng "Al­lau Ak­bar" (God is great­est). The women sat on bench­es and the chil­dren played or milled around.

Bal­lack spoke to re­porters af­ter speak­ing with Bakr's wife, An­nisa, who went in­to the sta­tion around 11 am. Bal­lack said she had con­firmed Bakr was al­right and she was go­ing to seek his med­i­cine for him.

Deny­ing Ja­maat mem­bers had any­thing to do with See­ta­hal's mur­der, Bal­lack said: "This is pure stu­pid­i­ty to say they are com­ing around to ask if some­body killed a woman. In the Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen we al­ways de­fend women. There are broth­ers who might be here who know if they hit their wives we used to flog them."

Bal­lack not­ed the re­cent claim by sus­pend­ed Po­lice So­cial Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion mem­ber Michael Seales that peo­ple might try to pro­voke po­lice to have a state of emer­gency called and there­fore de­lay the Sep­tem­ber 7 elec­tion.

"My firm view is that the per­se­cu­tion of 1990 has not stopped. In this coun­try, we will con­tin­ue to be per­se­cut­ed and worse of all, we are Mus­lims... our lives be­long to Al­lah, what­ev­er Al­lah choos­es for us to do we will do."

Pressed on what re­course the group had in mind, Bal­lack said: "They have three days they can hold the Imam so they have 72 hours to play with and they must fin­ish by 72 hours, lat­est.

"Af­ter that, we will bring a larg­er crowd of peo­ple and we will be in front here un­til his re­lease. This per­se­cu­tion must stop. Racial­ism in T&T must die."