Shas­tri Boodan

With ca­ble theft in­creas­ing in Cou­va, po­lice yes­ter­day shot one man and cap­tured four oth­ers al­leged­ly steal­ing ca­bles.

Po­lice said around 2.45 am, PCs Hug­gins and Seemu­n­gal, of the Cou­va CID, were re­spond­ing to calls of ca­ble theft in McBean, Cou­va, when they spot­ted a sil­ver sta­tion wag­on.

The dri­ver sped off and the of­fi­cers chased the ve­hi­cle along the South­ern Main Road. Po­lice said they were shot at and re­turned fire.

The ban­dits even­tu­al­ly crashed their ve­hi­cle in Bas­ta Hall and at­tempt­ed to es­cape on foot.

One man from Laven­tille man­aged to flee the law­men but three oth­ers in their 20s from Pleas­antville were nabbed. A firearm was al­so re­cov­ered.

One of the men, who was shot, re­mains un­der po­lice guard at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal in a sta­ble con­di­tion.

The car was be­ing ex­am­ined by foren­sic ex­perts at the Cou­va Sta­tion yes­ter­day.

Ear­li­er yes­ter­day, PCs Hug­gins and Seemu­n­gal al­so held a res­i­dent of Roys­to­nia steal­ing TSTT ca­bles in his neigh­bour­hood around 1.30 am, af­ter they got a call from a res­i­dent of the com­mu­ni­ty.

Yes­ter­day, Cou­va South MP Rudy In­dars­ingh said he has re­peat­ed­ly asked for more re­sources for the po­lice to tack­le the prob­lem and oth­er crimes.

In­dars­ingh said, “We have crim­i­nals flock­ing to Cou­va and en­vi­rons, steal­ing ca­bles, steal­ing cars, any­thing they could grab, what next? The po­lice need the ad­di­tion­al re­sources and man­pow­er. The busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty is not safe, peo­ple at­tempt­ing to do busi­ness put their lives at risk dai­ly. The Gov­ern­ment has to step up.”

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