The four men who were killed by po­lice dur­ing an al­leged shootout in the moun­tains at Up­per St Michael’s Road, St Au­gus­tine, yes­ter­day morn­ing, were yet to be iden­ti­fied up to last night.

Al­though the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) was un­able to de­fin­i­tive­ly con­firm if and how the men were con­nect­ed to the kid­nap­ping of dou­bles ven­dor An­isha Ho­sein-Singh, who was re­leased un­harmed on Wednes­day night in Ca­roni, it is be­lieved the four played a part in the woman’s five-day or­deal.

The dead men, who were killed sev­er­al hours af­ter Ho­sein-Singh was found by a mo­torist wan­der­ing along the road in Ca­roni, were al­leged to be mem­bers of the Re­sis­tance Gang.

Head of the An­ti Kid­nap­ping Unit (AKU), ASP Dar­ryl Ram­dass, yes­ter­day said, “We would have had in­tel­li­gence that sug­gest­ed and led to en­quiries.”

Mean­while, the top brass in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice be­lieve the kid­nap­pers were “spooked” as a re­sult of in­ten­si­fied in­ves­ti­ga­tions and had cho­sen to re­lease their vic­tim to avoid de­tec­tion and ap­pre­hen­sion.

How­ev­er, in­ves­ti­ga­tors said there may be oth­er play­ers still at large and are con­tin­u­ing to with­hold most of the in­for­ma­tion on the case.

Ho­sein-Singh, a 27-year-old moth­er of one, was grabbed by armed men around 5.50 am on May 18, whilst set­ting up the Sauce & Sons dou­bles stand along the East­ern Main Road, El Do­ra­do, Tu­na­puna. She was picked up by a dri­ver around 10 pm on Wednes­day near the Ca­roni Cre­ma­tion Site.

Re­ports claim that of­fi­cers, act­ing on in­tel­li­gence, hiked for at least 30 min­utes through the hilly St Au­gus­tine ter­rain around 9 am yes­ter­day as they con­tin­ued en­quiries.

At some stage dur­ing their jour­ney, they were al­leged­ly fired up­on by the sus­pects, who were said to be hid­ing in a wood­en shack.

The of­fi­cers re­turned fire, killing the four men on the spot.

A pis­tol and an au­to­mat­ic ri­fle were al­leged­ly re­cov­ered in the shack where the sus­pects were killed.

Near­by res­i­dents con­firmed hear­ing gun­fire but claimed to be un­aware of who had been killed in the area, com­mon­ly re­ferred to as “The Zone”.

Sev­er­al women who ar­rived at the scene as news of the killings spread and were seen cry­ing, re­fused to con­firm their re­la­tion­ship with the men or their iden­ti­ties.

Ho­sein-Singh safe, back with fam­i­ly

Even as this sit­u­a­tion was un­fold­ing, the trau­ma­tised Ho­sein-Singh was said to have been rest­ing safe­ly in the arms of her rel­a­tives.

Ad­dress­ing the me­dia dur­ing a brief­ing close to where the shoot­ing oc­curred at 1.30 pm, AKU head Ram­dass pro­vid­ed an up­date on Ho­sein-Singh’s well-be­ing.

He shared, “She is safe. She is in good health and the Vic­tim and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit is li­ais­ing with her and the fam­i­ly.

“At this time, she is do­ing well and is safe with the fam­i­ly. She was giv­en med­ical at­ten­tion last night (Wednes­day) up­on re­ceiv­ing her and she is do­ing fine.”

Asked what pre­lim­i­nary in­for­ma­tion was ob­tained from Ho­sein-Singh, in­clud­ing what she had been fed and what if any oth­er al­lowances had been made whilst she was held cap­tive, Ram­dass said, “She did not in­di­cate at that point in time. The lev­el of trau­ma that young la­dy would have gone through, it would be hard to put those kinds of ques­tions to her.”

Promis­ing up­dates would be forth­com­ing, he said she had not been phys­i­cal­ly harmed.

While Ram­dass praised the team in­stru­men­tal in the suc­cess­ful re­cov­ery of Ho­sein-Singh, he avoid­ed of­fi­cial con­fir­ma­tion that a ran­som was paid for Ho­sein-Singh’s safe re­lease. Un­sub­stan­ti­at­ed re­ports in­di­cate the ran­som would have climbed up in­to the mil­lions.

Ram­dass as­sured fur­ther in­for­ma­tion would be is­sued via the TTPS’ Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Di­vi­sion.

Asked if they had been able to tri­an­gu­late and pin­point the lo­ca­tion where Ho­sein-Singh had been kept, he said in­ves­ti­ga­tions were con­tin­u­ing.

DCP: TTPS act­ed im­me­di­ate­ly

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP), In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions, Suzette Mar­tin, said de­spite the pub­lic crit­i­cism that the TTPS had tak­en too long to act, they sprung in­to ac­tion from the time Ho­sein-Singh was snatched.

“I im­me­di­ate­ly co­or­di­nat­ed an in­ter-agency in­tel­li­gence op­er­a­tional team,” she said, as­sur­ing they in­ten­si­fied in­ves­ti­ga­tions as the days went by.

“Based on the dy­nam­ic of the sit­u­a­tion, you can­not re­lease too much to the pub­lic that may cause the hostage life to be en­dan­gered.”

She said all TTPS re­sources had been en­gaged, along with ex­ter­nal as­sis­tance and they had per­formed at their best in the cir­cum­stances.

Mar­tin con­firmed Ho­sein-Singh had been safe­ly re­leased near the Ca­roni Cre­ma­tion site around 10 pm on May 22, and was picked up by a pass­er-by who took her to the St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion where she was ques­tioned briefly be­fore be­ing tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope, for med­ical treat­ment.

As in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ued yes­ter­day, Mar­tin said the in­tel­li­gence-led team was in the for­est at Up­per St Michael’s Road on en­quiries when the gun­fight en­sued.

Mean­while, North Cen­tral Di­vi­sion (NCD) Snr Supt Richard Smith echoed Mar­tin’s claim that the TTPS had act­ed im­me­di­ate­ly. He said Ho­sein-Singh’s re­lease had been the re­sult of their ef­forts from Sat­ur­day morn­ing to yes­ter­day.

Warn­ing the crim­i­nal el­e­ments that po­lice will not sit by and al­low the re-emer­gence of kid­nap­pings and ex­tor­tion rack­ets to flour­ish in the di­vi­sion, he said, “We will not tol­er­ate this. The per­sons who are bent on per­pe­trat­ing this type of crime must know we will not tol­er­ate this.”

To mem­bers of the pub­lic and the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty who were vic­tims of “tax­ing” to re­port it to the po­lice.

Ex­tend­ing con­do­lences to the fam­i­lies of the men killed yes­ter­day, he said, “It is al­ways dis­heart­en­ing when some­one dies no mat­ter what the cir­cum­stances are. This in­ci­dent that oc­curred here in the for­est is the cul­mi­na­tion of our ef­forts be­cause from Sat­ur­day, we have been tap­ping on the tech­no­log­i­cal as­pect of the TTPS, as well as the in­tel­li­gence-led polic­ing, as well as all the arms of the TTPS that was in­volved in this.”

The tough-talk­ing of­fi­cer had a mes­sage for those re­spon­si­ble.

“This could be the end re­sult, and I am urg­ing the per­sons who in­tend on en­ter­ing this life of crime to please take an­oth­er step, make an­oth­er choice. Don’t take this path be­cause it may end up like this.”

He un­der­scored, “It is not a threat but we are here to en­sure that we pro­tect the lives of the in­no­cent cit­i­zens out­side there, and we will be re­lent­less in our pur­suit and we will con­tin­ue to do our work, when­ev­er and what­ev­er it takes.

“We are man­dat­ed and we have pledged to the na­tion, to bring down vi­o­lent crimes and we, in fact, in­tend to do just that.”

He said the TTPS had adopt­ed a ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach as it re­lat­ed to all types of crimes.

“It is time we take back our coun­try be­cause we can­not give it up to these crim­i­nals.”

Smith praised the mem­bers of the pub­lic for com­ing for­ward with in­for­ma­tion that as­sist­ed them in se­cur­ing Ho­sein-Singh’s re­lease.

He said par­al­lel in­ves­ti­ga­tions will be tak­ing place in­to yes­ter­day’s shoot­ings, as the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB) and Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) both had over­sight to lead in­de­pen­dent probes.

DCP Mar­tin said an in­ves­ti­ga­tion had al­so been ini­ti­at­ed in­to the dis­clo­sure by As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Wayne Mys­tar that a ran­som de­mand had been re­ceived by Ho­sein-Singh’s fam­i­ly on Tues­day.

Asked what con­se­quences he was fac­ing as a re­sult of the claim, which was lat­er de­nied by the fam­i­ly, she said, “That’s an in­ter­nal mat­ter and we are deal­ing with it as we think.”

How­ev­er, she did not de­ny the state­ment Mys­tar made on a ra­dio talk show pro­gramme on Mon­day. She promised a fur­ther up­date on the “sen­si­tive in­ves­ti­ga­tion” with­in 24 to 48 hours.

Oth­er probe in­to Re­sis­tance Gang

The Re­sis­tance Gang has been fin­gered in the con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the in­stal­la­tion of se­cu­ri­ty cam­eras re­port­ed­ly used to spy on po­lice sta­tions with­in the NCD.

The spy­ware was dis­cov­ered ear­li­er this month on T&TEC poles along St John’s Road, St Au­gus­tine and Monte Grande, Tu­na­puna, and is still be­ing dis­man­tled, ac­cord­ing to Smith.

Asked if the two in­ci­dents could be re­lat­ed, he ad­mit­ted, “We are see­ing a con­nec­tion be­cause it’s where we see they are mon­i­tor­ing our ac­tions as it re­lates to the cam­eras.”

Asked if more cam­eras had been dis­cov­ered, he said in­ves­ti­ga­tions were con­tin­u­ing in­to lo­cat­ing and re­mov­ing oth­ers that might still be op­er­a­tional in the di­vi­sion.