?Rad­hi­ca Sookraj and Yvonne Webb

At­tor­ney Anand Ram­lo­gan drooped his shoul­ders and head as he stood out­side his fire­bombed law of­fice in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day on the verge of tears.

"This has to­tal­ly de­stroyed me com­plete­ly. All of my life's work has gone," he ad­mit­ted in very re­strained terms. The hu­man rights at­tor­ney, whose ca­reer has been de­fined by the many land­mark cas­es he fought, was at a loss to un­der­stand what could have prompt­ed some­one to com­mit such a vi­cious act. "In my 15 years prac­tis­ing law, I have made no en­e­mies... When peo­ple leave my of­fice, I make sure they leave with a smile," he said. Asked about a pos­si­ble con­nec­tion be­tween his as­pi­ra­tion for po­lit­i­cal of­fice and the fire, Ram­lo­gan said: "I am so con­fused, I don't want to spec­u­late... But if it is, I am shak­en and stirred, but I am not fried," he said. "This has on­ly served to strength­en my po­lit­i­cal re­solve." He said the in­ci­dent showed the trau­mat­ic re­al­i­ty of so­ci­ety where crim­i­nals had tak­en over. Re­call­ing the in­ci­dent, Ram­lo­gan said he left his of­fice for home around 1 am yes­ter­day. Two hours lat­er, he re­ceived a call that his law cham­bers at Free­dom House was on fire.

Eye­wit­ness­es told the po­lice they saw a man run­ning from the build­ing short­ly be­fore a loud ex­plo­sion was heard. The build­ing, a stone's throw from the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Sta­tion and the courts, housed the of­fices of two oth­er at­tor­neys–Im­ran Khan and COP po­lit­i­cal ac­tivist Kevin Rati­ram. Fif­teen peo­ple were in their em­ploy. Khan's and Rati­ram's of­fices, lo­cat­ed on the top floor of the build­ing, were saved. Fire­fight­ers re­spond­ed quick­ly and man­aged to pre­vent the fire from spread­ing. They were un­able to save the in­side ground floor of the build­ing, which housed his com­put­ers and a stack of le­gal files.

Ram­lo­gan, who is sched­uled to ap­pear be­fore the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) screen­ing com­mit­tee lat­er to­day, said as a re­sult, many of his civ­il cas­es may be in jeop­ardy. He said: "I had a lot of con­fi­den­tial doc­u­ments in there. All of my life's work in the 15 years that I have been an at­tor­ney is in­side the of­fice," Ram­lo­gan said.

South­ern As­sem­bly re­sponse

The As­sem­bly of South­ern Lawyers con­demned the fire­bomb­ing and called it a cow­ard­ly act. The as­so­ci­a­tion's pres­i­dent Ted Roop­nar­ine ex­pressed sup­port for Ram­lo­gan dur­ing his or­deal and gave an un­der­tak­ing to as­sist in what­ev­er way they could.