Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Fol­low­ing a se­ries of fires in Tor­tu­ga that were de­lib­er­ate­ly set, res­i­dents are liv­ing un­der a cloud of fear as they won­der who will be the next tar­get.

The lat­est sus­pect­ed ar­son at­tack took place around 2 pm on Thurs­day, when the old post of­fice, a his­tor­i­cal land­mark in the com­mu­ni­ty, was burnt to the ground.

While res­i­dents be­lieve a men­tal­ly chal­lenged man has been set­ting the fires, they have no proof. 

The post of­fice fire oc­curred weeks af­ter the Open Bible Church was burnt to the ground on Oc­to­ber 7. Be­fore that, two hous­es were burnt.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed yes­ter­day, res­i­dents were too afraid to speak on cam­era for fear they would be tar­get­ed.

One res­i­dent said there were ru­mours that the pop­u­lar Our La­dy of Montser­rat RC Church, a his­tor­i­cal site and tourist at­trac­tion, was the next tar­get.

“Tonight they will have a meet­ing to dis­cuss se­cu­ri­ty, be­cause that is a his­tor­i­cal site, 150-some­thing years. This is hor­ri­ble,” she said.

She said res­i­dents were liv­ing in fear.

“It’s very scary. A lot of peo­ple know what’s go­ing on in the area, but they are very scared. They don’t want to talk about it.”

She called for fre­quent po­lice pa­trols in the area.

She said, “The po­lice don’t re­al­ly pass in Tor­tu­ga at all, so we need po­lice to pass here reg­u­lar­ly. But re­mem­ber, it hap­pened once, twice, three times; we don’t know who is next. That’s what we are scared about. We don’t know who is next. It is a scary time be­cause we did not sleep last night at all.”

Tor­tu­ga Vil­lage Coun­cil pres­i­dent, Suren­dra Ma­haraj, said the fires at the Open Bible Church and post of­fice had rocked the com­mu­ni­ty.

Due to the area’s scenic land­scape and rich his­to­ry, he said, reg­u­lar na­ture walks and tours were host­ed, and the post of­fice was one of the sites that were vis­it­ed.

“It’s re­al­ly a sore point right now to see that the build­ing is no more. There is no way we can repli­cate it or re­build it. It will nev­er be the same. It is part of the his­to­ry of Tor­tu­ga that is now lost.”

How­ev­er, Ma­haraj said there was no con­crete ev­i­dence that the fires were de­lib­er­ate­ly set, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for the po­lice to make an ar­rest.

He urged res­i­dents with in­for­ma­tion that could as­sist the po­lice in their in­ves­ti­ga­tions to come for­ward.

“I know we are at fault here, be­cause we are al­so the ears and eyes of the po­lice ser­vice. We hope that some­one who would have seen what took place would come for­ward and be able to make a for­mal of­fi­cial state­ment,” he said.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, who asked not to be iden­ti­fied, said the al­leged sus­pect was seen near the post of­fice around the time of the fire. 

“It is re­al­ly scary. I don’t know what the po­lice could do, but every­one is scared. We don’t know who is next.”

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.