The killing of 23-month-old tod­dler Aki­ni Kafi, along­side two men in Bel­mont on Thurs­day, the sec­ond child-linked tragedy to rock Trinidad and To­ba­go in un­der two months, has trig­gered re­newed alarm among re­li­gious lead­ers.

The Op­po­si­tion has re­ject­ed claims that Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) leg­is­la­tion could have pre­vent­ed the Bel­mont triple mur­der that left a tod­dler dead, even as the Gov­ern­ment de­fends the ef­fec­tive­ness of the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SOE) and con­tin­ues to pro­mote ZOSO as part of its wider crime strat­e­gy.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der has sought to clar­i­fy com­ments that ap­peared to sug­gest he would sup­port a cur­few, af­ter a triple shoot­ing in Bel­mont left two men and a tod­dler dead and re­newed pub­lic con­cern over vi­o­lent crime.

Stu­dents, par­ents and teach­ers at the Bel­mont Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School yes­ter­day marched around the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, to pro­mote peace and love.

A Bel­mont teenag­er was shot in the leg dur­ing an al­leged dri­ve-by shoot­ing yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

Af­ter spend­ing hours in cap­tiv­i­ty, a 43-year-old San­ta Cruz man was res­cued by po­lice af­ter be­ing tak­en from his home at gun­point yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe says the Min­istry of Health is care­ful­ly mon­i­tor­ing the in­ter­na­tion­al con­cern over a clus­ter of han­tavirus cas­es linked to a cruise ship bound for the Ca­nary Is­lands, and is al­so re­view­ing un­usu­al res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness­es in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

A 34-year-old man from Va­len­cia has been freed of mur­der­ing a fel­low res­i­dent af­ter an al­leged wit­ness to the crime re­fused to tes­ti­fy.

Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Al­der­man Wayne Grif­fith has for­giv­en the stu­dents that vi­o­lent­ly at­tacked him, but he still wants puni­tive ac­tion tak­en.

Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les is ask­ing Par­lia­ment to re­fer House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh to the Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges, ac­cus­ing him of bias, con­tempt of Par­lia­ment and fail­ing to de­clare a con­flict of in­ter­est dur­ing a key par­lia­men­tary in­quiry in­to phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal pro­cure­ment.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day hailed the deep­en­ing re­la­tion­ship be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and In­dia, as this coun­try wel­comed In­dia’s Min­is­ter of Ex­ter­nal Af­fairs, Dr Sub­rah­manyam Jais­hankar, to the Par­lia­ment for an of­fi­cial vis­it marked by the sign­ing of sev­er­al key Mem­o­ran­da of Un­der­stand­ing (MoU).

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT) says a cy­ber­at­tack tar­get­ing its dig­i­tal learn­ing plat­form did not, to its knowl­edge so far, re­sult in any sig­nif­i­cant breach of sen­si­tive stu­dent da­ta, as the in­sti­tu­tion moved to re­as­sure stu­dents, staff and the pub­lic amid con­cerns over pos­si­ble leaks.