Shal­iza Has­sanali

Tourism Min­is­ter Chan­dresh Shar­ma is un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the po­lice for the as­sault of his for­mer girl­friend.Sacha Singh, the man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of AMS Biotech Se­cu­ri­ty Con­cept and Am­Sure T&T Ltd, who is in her late 20s, met with of­fi­cers of the St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion on Fri­day at her Pi­ar­co busi­ness and gave a state­ment of Shar­ma's al­leged phys­i­cal abuse dur­ing an al­ter­ca­tion on March 12 at Grand Bazaar.Though a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to such a mat­ter can take as long as six months, the Sun­day Guardian learnt that be­cause of the high-pro­file na­ture of the mat­ter it is be­ing fast-tracked.ASP Joanne Archie, pub­lic in­for­ma­tion of­fi­cer of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, yes­ter­day con­firmed that an in­ves­ti­ga­tion was be­ing con­duct­ed by the po­lice against Shar­ma: "State­ments were record­ed and the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is in progress."

Archie said "a charge or charges" may be laid af­ter the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.Shar­ma's in­ves­ti­ga­tion comes days af­ter for­mer min­is­ter of the peo­ple Dr Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh was fired by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on Tues­day, fol­low­ing al­le­ga­tions of dis­or­der­ly be­hav­iour on board a Caribbean Air­lines flight on March 16.

Ques­tions about the child arose

Po­lice were told that Singh met Shar­ma in the car park of Grand Bazaar, near Top­pers around 7.45 pm on March 12. Shar­ma had agreed to meet Singh at the mall.In the back seat of Singh's car was a 12-year-old girl and her moth­er, a school­teacher.Shar­ma en­tered her Mer­cedes Benz car and sat in the front pas­sen­ger seat, where ques­tions about the child arose.The child even­tu­al­ly moved and Shar­ma spot­ted her. The child called out to Shar­ma who ac­knowl­edged her.Singh be­gan to ask Shar­ma about main­tain­ing the child.Shar­ma and the girl's moth­er came out of the ve­hi­cle ar­gu­ing.Short­ly af­ter, there was a scuf­fle be­tween Shar­ma and the woman.Dur­ing the melee, Shar­ma urged the woman to stop hit­ting a Brah­min boy.Singh came out of the car and held on to Shar­ma's tie, but was slapped across the face.

Shar­ma, the po­lice were told, pushed Singh who fell back and hit her head on her car and blacked out for sev­er­al min­utes. Af­ter gain­ing con­scious­ness, Singh said they were check­ing her pulse. She said she was told that Shar­ma was putting wa­ter on face, fore­head and head to re­vive her.Singh said Shar­ma kept say­ing she was fine and told her not to go to the hos­pi­tal, but in­stead she should go home and take a show­er.Singh called her doc­tor at St Au­gus­tine Pri­vate Hos­pi­tal who told her he was not on du­ty. She went home and took painkillers.The fol­low­ing day, Singh was ex­am­ined by Dr Pul­chan at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex who di­ag­nosed that she suf­fered from a mild con­cus­sion and haematoma (swelling of the brain).She then re­port­ed the in­ci­dent to Sgt Ogiste at the St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion.Trau­ma­tised by the in­ci­dent, Singh left the coun­try on March 14 and re­turned on March 25, where the po­lice took a re­port three days lat­er.The mat­ter is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed by In­sp Naim Gyan, who re­fused to com­ment yes­ter­day when con­tact­ed.

Singh: I am press­ing charges

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Singh said she was press­ing charges against Shar­ma, who she met at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel in Jan­u­ary 2013.Singh ad­mit­ted that she shared a re­la­tion­ship with Shar­ma, stat­ing that she has ev­i­dence to back up her claims. "I found out about the child last No­vem­ber by his (Shar­ma's) wife. That's when things start­ed to go down­hill with us be­cause when I asked him re­peat­ed­ly about the child, he kept deny­ing (the child) was his."She said Shar­ma had no right to push her down be­cause she brought the lit­tle girl to see him. Stat­ing that she had es­tab­lished her busi­ness be­fore she met Shar­ma, Singh, a for­mer Miss T&T con­tes­tant, said, "It is not that I am bit­ter, vin­dic­tive or want re­venge against him...it's about liv­ing up to your re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and speak­ing the truth. It's an in­no­cent child we are speak­ing about."

Singh said she could have left the mat­ter, but re­alised that it could have been far more se­ri­ous. "I could have died. This should serve as a mes­sage to all women that they can stand up and fight men who are abu­sive."

She said she was de­ter­mined to press charges against Shar­ma be­cause if left unchecked, some­one could get killed in the fu­ture as a re­sult of his ac­tions.Singh de­scribed the in­ci­dent as an abuse of pub­lic of­fice."The thing is, if you grab a woman's breast and you get re­moved and you knock down a woman...same thing."

Ramesh Ma­haraj: PM ought to re­move him

Yes­ter­day, for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj said on the ba­sis of the PM's ac­tion against Ra­mad­hars­ingh, the same should ap­ply for Shar­ma."An as­sault is when you at­tempt to hit some­one. If you hit, then it's as­sault and bat­tery, which is a crim­i­nal of­fence and would have to an­swer a charge in the Mag­is­trate's Court."Ma­haraj said Shar­ma's re­port was far worse."It's a form of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence be­cause he was friend­ly with her."Ma­haraj said a min­is­ter does not have to be charged to be fired, but the charge ag­gra­vates the sit­u­a­tion.A min­is­ter, Ma­haraj said, must be an ex­em­plar."The PM ought to re­move him...There must be high stan­dards in pub­lic life."Ma­haraj said an in­ves­ti­ga­tion like this should take on­ly a few days."These mat­ters are sim­ple in­ves­ti­ga­tions. So this sum­ma­ry com­plaint must be filed with­in six months of the date of the in­ci­dent."

Sat main­tains it'sa do­mes­tic af­fair

Sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha said Ra­mad­hars­ingh's is­sue was quite dif­fer­ent from Shar­ma's."Ra­mad­hars­ingh's in­ci­dent hap­pened in an air­craft with oth­er pas­sen­gers who were en­dan­gered. This is a dif­fer­ent thing–a do­mes­tic dis­pute...lots of peo­ple have. One is a do­mes­tic af­fair, and one is pub­lic man­i­fes­ta­tion of bad be­hav­iour. It was a dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tion be­cause lots of politi­cians...they have do­mes­tic prob­lems. So that is why I drew the line."Ma­haraj main­tained that the mat­ter in­volv­ing Shar­ma will take its course.Ma­haraj in­sists that he was not con­don­ing do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

See­baran�Suite: If it istrue... it is to be de­plored

Women's ac­tivist, chair­man of Ad­vo­cates of Safe Par­ent­hood: Im­prov­ing Re­pro­duc­tive Eq­ui­ty (As­pire), at­tor­ney Lynette See­baran�Suite said: "If it is true, then re­al­ly, it is to be de­plored be­cause do­mes­tic vi­o­lence is one of the most per­va­sive crimes so­ci­ety faces."See­baran-Suite said she has been try­ing to wres­tle with the prob­lem."So if we have ex­em­plars in so­ci­ety or peo­ple who are sup­posed to be ex­em­plars com­mit­ting that kind of vi­o­lence, then they should face the full brunt of the law."See­baran-Suite said any­how you look at it, "an as­sault is an as­sault."

No re­sponse from Shar­ma, PM

Yes­ter­day, a call made to Shar­ma's phone was an­swered by some­one who stat­ed that the min­is­ter was at­tend­ing a func­tion. An­oth­er call at 6.30 pm was not re­spond­ed to.Text mes­sages sent to Shar­ma's cell phone at 4.38 pm, 6.37 pm and 6.59 pm were not an­swered.Shar­ma al­so did not re­spond to ques­tions e-mailed to him.Mean­while, calls and texts to Per­sad-Bisses­sar's phone went unan­swered.