Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

Pres­i­dent of the Carlsen Field Vil­lage Coun­cil, Shi­raz Khan, is call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to fast-track firearm users’ li­cences for res­i­dents in the area amid con­tin­ued con­cerns about crime.

Khan claimed in re­cent years there have been three mur­ders, eight peo­ple were shot and there have been sev­er­al home in­va­sions, in­clud­ing his house, in the com­mu­ni­ty.

He said he con­tact­ed the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Ca­roni Cen­tral, David Lee, who told him he would need a week be­fore meet­ing with them. How­ev­er, he in­sist­ed the sit­u­a­tion re­quired im­me­di­ate ac­tion.

“Why should we be liv­ing as pris­on­ers? I’m call­ing on the Prime Min­is­ter, who was the Op­po­si­tion Leader, who said that she will be giv­ing peo­ple the FUL.

“Madam Prime Min­is­ter, I agree you now get in­to of­fice, but that shouldn’t be hard for us to get our FUL. Do not force any peo­ple to get in­to any vig­i­lante sys­tem,” Khan said yes­ter­day while speak­ing to the me­dia.

On­ly on Sat­ur­day, 20-year-old Sa­van­na Dy­er was killed and her body dumped in Carlsen Field.

Khan al­so called for more pa­trols from the po­lice as well as the prae­di­al lar­ce­ny squad.

“The Gov­ern­ment now come, but the oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tions and au­thor­i­ties have been there a while so it’s not now we ask­ing for pa­trols and the pres­ence of the TTPS. We have been do­ing that since last year March when my house was bro­ken in­to.

“Our sit­u­a­tion is so des­per­ate­ly in need of at­ten­tion, Mr MP, we can­not wait a week for a se­ri­ous meet­ing.”

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Lee to find out his plans to deal with the crime con­cerns of Carlsen Field res­i­dents but did not re­ceive a re­sponse.

How­ev­er, Khan said some mea­sures could be put in place to ad­dress their is­sues.

“We are sug­gest­ing that we put up bar­ri­ers by all the aux­il­iary en­trances and ex­its and make the sec­ondary en­trances and ex­its re­main with good light­ing and cam­eras. For you to have some com­fort, you must have some dif­fi­cul­ties.”

Khan claimed up to Sun­day night, a res­i­dent was on her way home around 11 pm and had to turn back be­cause some­one was block­ing the bridge.

Last Ju­ly, 27-year-old farmer Christo­pher Chris­t­ian was shot dead in a home in­va­sion in Carlsen Field that left his fa­ther se­ri­ous­ly in­jured.

Last year there were sev­er­al home in­va­sions where res­i­dents were beat­en and ter­rorised.