Resh­ma Ra­goonath

A Tacarigua man who broke in­to a masjid (mosque) dur­ing the holy month of Ra­madan in search of food has been jailed for two years with hard labour. Hafeez Mo­hammed was jailed when he ap­peared be­fore act­ing Deputy Chief?Mag­is­trate Ra­jen­dra Ram­bachan charged with com­mit­ting the of­fence on Au­gust 8.

He was ar­rest­ed by Con­sta­ble Moti­lal and charged with break­ing and en­ter­ing in­to a place of di­vine wor­ship with in­tent to com­mit an ar­restable of­fence. Mo­hammed plead­ed guilty last week. His sen­tence was de­ferred for court?pros­e­cu­tor Ram­dath Phillip to ob­tain a crim­i­nal record trace.

Phillip pre­sent­ed the trace in the San Fer­nan­do First Court yes­ter­day and told Ram­bachan Mo­hammed had one con­vic­tion in 2000 for im­per­son­at­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer. He served 40 days hard labour for that of­fence. Mo­hammed plead­ed for a sec­ond chance. He said had a 13 year-old son. He said he was stay­ing at the masjid as a care­tak­er.

Phillip told the court around 12.10 am on Au­gust 8, Moti­lal and oth­er of­fi­cers were on pa­trol when they re­ceived in­for­ma­tion and went to the masjid at Prince Al­bert?Street, San Fer­nan­do where he met the care­tak­er. The care­tak­er made a re­port. Moti­lal saw Mo­hammed on the low­er part of the build­ing. He ap­proached the man and told him of the re­port. Mo­hammed replied: "Boss, ah hun­gry. Ah want­ed some­thing to eat."