Heads of the Mus­lims com­mu­ni­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go have ap­par­ent­ly agreed to work with the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty forces to weed out rad­i­cals who are us­ing the “Ras­ta City” and “Mus­lims” gang ban­ners to con­duct crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young said yes­ter­day.

Young’s com­ment came af­ter a meet­ing be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Mus­lim lead­ers at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre in St Ann’s, where crime was one of the main top­ics.

Young said it was clear the Gov­ern­ment doesn’t see re­li­gion as “play­ing any part in this from a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty per­spec­tive.”

“They are all crim­i­nal el­e­ments. We do not for a mo­ment buy in­to the nar­ra­tive that it is a bat­tle be­tween Rasta­far­i­an­ism and the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty, so we con­demn that. We have told the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty that if they pick up any in­tel­li­gence please let us know and that ap­plies to every­body in T&T,” Young said, adding they have asked the Mus­lim lead­ers to work along with them to fight crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty in T&T.

He added that he was told by some of the Mus­lim lead­ers that they had al­ready be­gun en­gage­ment with some lead­ers of the Rasta­far­i­an move­ment in prepar­ing a pol­i­cy pa­per for some sort of res­o­lu­tion to the crime prob­lem.

“They said they are work­ing on a pol­i­cy pa­per and that they them­selves are plan­ning a press con­fer­ence to go to the pub­lic as the heads of the Rasta­far­i­an and the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty and they plan to en­gage. What I told them is that na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty would be very in­ter­est­ed in part­ner­ing with them as to how we take that for­ward,” Young said.

Young con­demned last week’s ter­ror­ist at­tack on two mosques in New Zealand that led to the deaths of 49 peo­ple. Asked if he felt a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion could oc­cur here and if se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures will be in­ten­si­fied at places of wor­ship, Young replied: “Every­thing now in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is be­ing dri­ven by in­tel­li­gence…so, we are pick­ing up in­tel­li­gence con­stant­ly. Our op­er­a­tions are be­ing dri­ven by in­tel­li­gence so we are as­sured that this time no in­tel­li­gence of any of those crim­i­nal el­e­ments or ac­tiv­i­ties be­ing planned against any re­li­gion but we will con­tin­ue to be alert. You would have heard me an­swer in the Sen­ate a few months ago that the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice has more po­lice pa­trols at all places of wor­ship.”

The AS­JA del­e­ga­tion, led by Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al Ha­ji Ya­coob Ali, gave the as­sur­ance that Mus­lims in T&T were all about peace and har­mo­ny.

“In all so­ci­eties we will have some peo­ple who may move in a dif­fer­ent man­ner and make com­ments that they are not en­ti­tled to make and pass judg­ment on any of the be­liefs and prac­tices that we are do­ing, but that does not make them not good enough for the Almighty to recog­nise them but they have to be cau­tious as to what they are say­ing that they don’t con­vey the wrong mes­sage of what Is­lam tru­ly is about.”

Mufti Muhammed Asaru Haq said he strong­ly be­lieves that the at­tack which oc­curred in New Zealand last week, re­sult­ing in the deaths of 49 peo­ple, can­not take place in T&T.

“The Prime Min­is­ter ex­pressed his con­do­lences and sym­pa­thy for those in New Zealand and he said the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty will make sure such an act will not take place in T&T and added that we should not live in T&T un­der fear, re­li­gious fear or any fear that we should live in har­mo­ny and peace,” Asaru Haq said.

In a re­lease is­sued last evening by the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Row­ley as­sured mem­bers of the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty the Gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing their right to pro­tec­tion and equal place in T&T.

“I want to give you the as­sur­ance as Prime Min­is­ter and as head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil that your claim to an equal place in this coun­try is undis­put­ed and great­ly de­fend­ed,” Row­ley said.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go is the best place for you, your fam­i­lies, your re­li­gious broth­ers and sis­ters to be at this tur­bu­lent time. I know of no oth­er coun­try where the lev­el of free­dom to prac­tice your re­li­gion, to ac­cept equal­i­ty by gen­der and to ac­cept pro­tec­tion with­out ques­tion by the State. “No oth­er coun­try has all these com­po­nents avail­able to its cit­i­zens in great dos­es … let us not take it for grant­ed.”

Row­ley told Mus­lim lead­ers they have a right to de­mand pro­tec­tion but they al­so have a du­ty to con­demn crim­i­nal­i­ty in all its forms, es­pe­cial­ly with­in their or­gan­i­sa­tions wher­ev­er it may be found.

Al­so present at the meet­ing were Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Kaz­im Ho­sein, Min­is­ter of State in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith and Act­ing Chief of De­fence Staff, Group Cap­tain Dar­ryl Daniel.