KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Car­ni­val is usu­al­ly a lu­cra­tive time for en­tre­pre­neurs and small busi­ness own­ers, but one Bar­rack­pore truck­er is hav­ing a sour sea­son af­ter an ar­son­ist torched his two trucks.

Shi­va Balka­ran, the own­er of Shi­va’s Trans­port lost two trucks with 40-ft trail­ers, which he planned to con­vert to mu­sic trucks for Car­ni­val Mon­day in Port-of-Spain.

He told Guardian Me­dia that the loss was es­ti­mat­ed at $900,000, which was a blow af­ter work­ing hard in the sug­ar cane in­dus­try.

With the mon­ey he saved, he pur­chased the trucks and formed his busi­ness.

Balka­ran said the trucks were usu­al­ly parked in an open area along Ceme­tery Street, Mon­key Town. On Sun­day night, he and his busi­ness part­ner Shel­don had fin­ished re­pair­ing and paint­ing the trucks for the road. They left to check an­oth­er truck when some­one called and told them about the fire.

“When I reached down here I called Shel­don and we had no choice but just to watch it fin­ish burn down,” Balka­ran said.

He said fire of­fi­cers found ev­i­dence that an ac­cel­er­ant was thrown on the door of the truck, mak­ing this in­ci­dent a case of ar­son. Bar­rack­pore po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing. So far, no one has been held.