Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Let there be peace.

This is the mes­sage sent by St Au­gus­tine MP Khadi­jah Ameen to res­i­dents of the small com­mu­ni­ty of Warn­er Street, Free­man Road in St Au­gus­tine, where there have been sev­en mur­ders for the year.

Speak­ing with re­porters dur­ing an out­reach event in which she and her sup­port­ers hand­ed out lunch­es to res­i­dents and stopped to hear their con­cerns on Sat­ur­day, Ameen sought to speak di­rect­ly to those re­spon­si­ble for the up­surge in vi­o­lence in the com­mu­ni­ty.

Ameen said, “I am ap­peal­ing to those in­volved in the vi­o­lence in any way whether they were vic­tims or per­pe­tra­tors for peace. I am plead­ing for peace. I am call­ing for them to put down the guns and not take up re­venge for your sis­ter or broth­er that died.”

The MP al­so called for the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to be pro­vid­ed with ex­tra re­sources to help ad­dress the crime sit­u­a­tion in the com­mu­ni­ty.

“We are ask­ing the po­lice to do their jobs and get the guns out of the hands of the crim­i­nals and young peo­ple who have fall­en prey. I per­son­al­ly, as the MP, am not go­ing to sit back and say the Train Line is a dan­ger­ous place,” she said.

While she ad­mit­ted that res­i­dents were pleased with the re­sponse of the TTPS, she said that many were still ap­pre­hen­sive to co­op­er­ate based on neg­a­tive ex­pe­ri­ences in the past in when the crim­i­nals learned of the as­sis­tance of­fered to the po­lice.

“Quite a few peo­ple are afraid to come out to speak to the po­lice be­cause some­one would feel that they are in­form­ing and that could mean death. We still have to build trust be­tween the po­lice and res­i­dents,” she said.

Ameen al­so called on the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices to as­sist by pro­vid­ing grants and coun­selling to res­i­dents.

“The re­quire­ments to qual­i­fy for those grants are so strin­gent that peo­ple who are in dire need are not qual­i­fy­ing. Most peo­ple do not want a hand­out,” she said.

Ameen ex­plained that the com­mu­ni­ty al­so suf­fers from in­fra­struc­ture is­sues that can­not be eas­i­ly ad­dressed as the com­mu­ni­ty sprung up with­out plan­ning per­mis­sion with some hous­es over­lap­ping the road.

“Many peo­ple in this area who live here are in the low-in­come brack­et. Peo­ple do not have jobs,” she said.

ACP Mys­tar: Res­i­dents can share in­for­ma­tion di­rect­ly with the head of North­ern Di­vi­sion

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day to re­spond to Ameen’s con­cerns, As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Wayne Mys­tar said that if res­i­dents are afraid to speak to of­fi­cers from the St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion that serves the area, they can make arrange­ments to share in­for­ma­tion with the head of the North­ern Di­vi­sion di­rect­ly.

For the year thus far, there have been sev­en res­i­dents who were mur­dered.

On Jan­u­ary 16, 16-year-old Dar­shan Ram­nauth and Geno Shah were killed in a dri­ve-by shoot­ing.

Three months lat­er, 26-year-old Aneesa Ramkissoon was gunned down af­ter she re­port­ed­ly re­fused to pay a “tax” to crim­i­nals in the area.

On April 5, 21-year-old Daniel Ri­ley was shot and killed at his home and his 16-year-old preg­nant girl­friend was wound­ed.

On April 26, Dil­lion Joseph was shot and killed while work­ing at his wa­ter­mel­on stall at Ca­roni Sa­van­nah Road.

Ear­li­er this month, 26-year-old Kris Pooran was killed by gun­men as he walked past Joseph’s wake.

On May 20, Roger Ma­haraj, a fa­ther of eight, who had moved out of the com­mu­ni­ty was killed.