As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (South/Cen­tral) Wayne Mys­tar has called on law­mak­ers to clas­si­fy home in­va­sion as a dis­tinct crim­i­nal of­fence and im­ple­ment harsh­er penal­ties.

He said he has al­ready mo­bilised a team of of­fi­cers to tack­le this scourge.

Speak­ing to re­porters dur­ing a walk­a­bout through the streets of Princes Town yes­ter­day, ACP Mys­tar said, “In­vad­ing some­one’s home is not just a vi­o­la­tion of prop­er­ty but al­so a vi­o­la­tion of a per­son’s rights to safe­ty, se­cu­ri­ty, and sanc­ti­ty in their homes.”

Send­ing a mes­sage to thieves and bur­glars, Mys­tar added, “If you are plan­ning to in­vade peo­ple’s homes, we say re­con­sid­er this ac­tion and change, be­cause these of­fences have se­vere con­se­quences.”

He not­ed, “I have as­signed spe­cial re­sources in South and Cen­tral ar­eas to deal specif­i­cal­ly with the act of in­vad­ing homes. We will seek them, find them, and pros­e­cute them to the full ex­tent of the law.”

On­ly last Sat­ur­day night, pen­sion­er Am­i­na Mo­hammed, 68, was stabbed and killed by ban­dits who broke in­to her Cou­va home and made off with cash and jew­ellery. Dur­ing an­oth­er in­ci­dent on Tues­day, ban­dits robbed an El So­cor­ro fam­i­ly of over $300,000.

TTPS le­gal of­fi­cer for the South­ern Di­vi­sion, Re­gan Ram­nanan em­pha­sised the need for leg­isla­tive re­form.

“We have seen an uptick in the num­ber of these in­ci­dents, and it may be time for the leg­isla­tive arm of gov­ern­ment to re­view the laws re­lat­ing to home in­va­sions. Cur­rent­ly, home in­va­sion is not clas­si­fied as an of­fence. In­stead, it falls un­der var­i­ous cat­e­gories such as house­break­ing, lar­ce­ny, rob­bery, or bur­glary,” Ram­nanan said.

He added, “It’s time we ad­dress this gap to bring so­lace to vic­tims and of­fer pro­tec­tion to in­di­vid­u­als con­cerned about their safe­ty. The pun­ish­ment for in­vad­ing some­one’s home—vi­o­lat­ing their cas­tle and psy­che—should re­flect the ab­hor­rence we have for such be­hav­iour. In my opin­ion, the penal­ty should be stiff.”

Yes­ter­day, Mys­tar said po­lice of­fi­cers will be ed­u­cat­ing cit­i­zens on how to make their homes more se­cure. He said he hopes to col­lab­o­rate with the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment’s Di­vi­sion of Ag­ing to pro­vide ad­di­tion­al sup­port for el­der­ly vic­tims of home in­va­sions.

“I plan to vis­it el­der­ly peo­ple who are vic­tims of home in­va­sions and bring them com­fort. I al­so hope to work with the Di­vi­sion of Age­ing to iden­ti­fy el­der­ly res­i­dents and pay spe­cial at­ten­tion to pro­tect­ing them,” Mys­tar said. He called on cor­po­rate Trinidad and To­ba­go to as­sist by pro­vid­ing brochures to aid pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion.

Mean­while, the vice pres­i­dent of the Shawn Stoute Po­lice Com­mu­ni­ty As­so­ci­a­tion said that home in­va­sions are a grow­ing con­cern.

“That’s why we are tak­ing a proac­tive ap­proach. Cit­i­zens can call 486-9999 to re­port any sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty or in­di­vid­u­als in­volved in home in­va­sions,” he said.

Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, who dis­trib­uted over 1,000 toys in Debe yes­ter­day, said he wel­comed Mys­tar’s ini­tia­tive.

He said two days ago, busi­ness­man Chan­dra Ram­nanan of Boodoo Trace in Debe, who owned Chan­dra­ban Fab­ri­cat­ing, was kid­napped and his body dumped at Ra­goo­nanan Trace, Cunu­pia.

“Mr Mys­tar is tak­ing a proac­tive ap­proach and we agree we have to mon­i­tor the el­der­ly. Mrs Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said re­cent­ly that when we get in­to of­fice, we will make home in­va­sions a crim­i­nal of­fence which will car­ry a jail penal­ty,” Mooni­lal said.