RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Hun­dreds of en­tre­pre­neurs, res­i­dents and com­mu­ni­ty ac­tiv­i­ties par­tic­i­pat­ed in a mo­tor­cade in ho­n­our of mur­dered law clerk An­drea Bharatt through the his­toric town of Fyz­abad on Sat­ur­day morn­ing, as they called for changes to the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.

The mo­tor­cade was or­gan­ised by the for­mer kid­nap vic­tim and pres­i­dent of the Fyz­abad Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, Clint Ar­joon.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Ar­joon said the frus­tra­tion felt since Bharatt’s mur­der will con­tin­ue un­less the gov­ern­ment be­gin re-vis­it­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion, re­vamp­ing the Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Sys­tem, im­pro­vis­ing leg­isla­tive poli­cies and out­fit­ting the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice with prop­er re­sources.

He said that lengthy court cas­es must be a thing of the past.

“We want to see pol­i­cy changes with­in the gov­ern­ment and the Ju­di­cia­ry. We want more re­sources for the po­lice and we al­so want dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion for of­fi­cers of the law who fail to come to court,” Ar­joon said.

President of the Fyzabad Chamber of Commerce Clint Arjoon.

RISHI RAGOONATH

One of the sus­pects who was im­pli­cat­ed in Bharatt’s death had 70 court cas­es, 21 of which had been dis­missed be­cause of the fail­ure of po­lice to at­tend court.

Ar­joon al­so called for more foren­sic cen­tres to be es­tab­lished so that there will be no more de­lays in the sub­mis­sions of bal­lis­tic test­ing in court.

“Some­times it takes up to four years to get foren­sic test­ing done, Ar­joon added.

He not­ed, “Crime is our busi­ness be­cause it neg­a­tive­ly af­fects all of us. It af­fects the econ­o­my which re­duces tax­es and in­come for the gov­ern­ment. Some­thing has to be done to bring about change.”

Mean­while, Pres­i­dent of the Women Lives Mat­ter San­dra Ma­haraj called for con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form.

“We want a re­li­able PTSC ser­vice and we al­so want bar codes for all taxis on the road so that a pas­sen­ger could get im­me­di­ate in­for­ma­tion on all dri­vers be­fore they en­ter a taxi,” Ma­haraj said.

Hav­ing seen the mu­ti­lat­ed body of six-year-old Sean Luke af­ter he was killed, Ma­haraj said some­thing must be done to save T&T. She said in the 1980s, her friend was raped and mur­dered, while her six-month-old ba­by was be­head­ed and her hus­band was al­so killed in Waller­field.

“The Law As­so­ci­a­tion is talk­ing about the rights of the crim­i­nal but we have rights too. I want my nieces and nephews all the young peo­ple to live in peace, not in pieces,” Ma­haraj said.

Sandra Mahara, president of Women’s Lives Matter speaks to Guardian Media about the motorcade.

RISHI RAGOONATH

She not­ed that her group was non-po­lit­i­cal and was con­cerned about the hu­man race.

“This or­gan­i­sa­tion is not about race, pol­i­tics, re­li­gion but we will stand up against crime per­pe­trat­ed on women across the coun­try,” she said.

She lament­ed that sev­er­al crimes in­volv­ing women took place this week. The mo­tor­cade start­ed in Fyz­abad and con­tin­ued for four miles be­fore end­ing at the Na­tion­al Min­ing play­ground.