KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Pres­i­dent of the Fyz­abad Cham­ber of Com­merce (FCC) An­janie Jairam is call­ing for the ur­gent de­ploy­ment of joint na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty pa­trols to ad­dress es­ca­lat­ing crime in the com­mu­ni­ty. Her plea fol­lows the mur­der of busi­ness­man Muath Nas­sar, 49, who was gunned down while work­ing at his food out­let on Fyz­abad Road Tues­day morn­ing.

Po­lice said Nas­sar, a Ch­agua­nas res­i­dent and pro­pri­etor of Syr­i­ana Mid­dle East Foods, was re­port­ed­ly con­duct­ing sales when he was at­tacked. A res­i­dent claimed that ex­tor­tion­ists have re­cent­ly been tar­get­ing lo­cal busi­ness own­ers.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Jairam said that joint po­lice and army pa­trols could of­fer a short-term so­lu­tion.

“I have been mak­ing calls for over two years to strength­en the po­lice with joint pa­trols for Fyz­abad and all ‘hot spots’. The cit­i­zens can­not con­tin­ue to live with un­cer­tain­ty.”

Jairam ref­er­enced re­cent vis­its by Kei­th Scot­land, the Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, to busi­ness groups in Port-of-Spain, Ch­agua­nas and San Fer­nan­do, and not­ed that he men­tioned Fyz­abad dur­ing the na­tion­al bud­get de­bate when dis­cussing joint pa­trols.

“To date, we have not seen that,” she said, stress­ing the crit­i­cal need for ad­di­tion­al sup­port for Fyz­abad po­lice.

Since as­sum­ing the pres­i­den­cy of the FCC, Jairam said she has ad­vo­cat­ed for more re­sources for of­fi­cers of the Fyz­abad Po­lice Sta­tion and the es­tab­lish­ment of joint pa­trols. She lament­ed that Fyz­abad Po­lice of­ten lacked the ve­hi­cles to re­spond ef­fec­tive­ly to calls from the pub­lic.

She added that while the FCC has not of­fi­cial­ly re­ceived re­ports of ex­tor­tion, Jairam said the cham­ber has heard ac­counts from com­mit­tee mem­bers and the wider pub­lic. She ac­knowl­edged that one FCC mem­ber was al­leged­ly be­ing ex­tort­ed, but has not for­mal­ly re­port­ed it to the cham­ber. She at­trib­uted the un­der­re­port­ing to fear, align­ing with state­ments from the Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) that ex­tor­tion of­ten goes un­re­port­ed.

Jairam said Nas­sar’s mur­der and re­cent in­ci­dents of crime could de­ter busi­ness­es and en­tre­pre­neurs from in­vest­ing in Fyz­abad, hin­der­ing com­merce and eco­nom­ic growth.

“Christ­mas is com­ing, and peo­ple ex­pect a lit­tle free­dom to work and shop. They are look­ing for­ward to do­ing busi­ness, but they are al­so wor­ried about what might hap­pen when the place gets very busy,” she said.

The South­west­ern Di­vi­sion Po­lice con­firmed there have been no for­mal re­ports of ex­tor­tion from Fyz­abad’s busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty. How­ev­er, they said there are al­so hot­lines for re­port­ing crime. For now, in­ves­ti­ga­tors are treat­ing Nas­sar’s mur­der as an at­tempt­ed rob­bery.