T&T Coast Guard of­fi­cers are be­ing ac­cused of beat­ing three Ica­cos fish­er­men who were caught re­turn­ing from an area near the Venezue­lan bor­der on Sat­ur­day night.

Cap­tain Rakesh Ram­dass, own­er of the boat St Cather­ine TFS2888 said they were re­turn­ing home from fish­ing on Sat­ur­day around 8.30 pm when they saw flares em­a­nat­ing from what ap­peared to be a T&T Coast Guard ves­sel.

Ram­dass said it was dif­fi­cult to spot the Coast Guard in­ter­cep­tor as the lights had been off.

“We on­ly no­ticed it when we saw the flares,” he added.

Once de­tained, Ram­dass said the of­fi­cers ac­cused them of trans­port­ing drugs from Venezuela even though there were no drugs on the boat.

“I told them I don’t deal up in that and they said they saw my boat com­ing from the Venezue­lan bor­der,” Ram­dass said. He ex­plained to the of­fi­cers that he had dropped his nets at Gal­fa Point but the nets had drift­ed to­wards the bor­der so he went to re­trieve it.

“They said I was ly­ing and they ac­cused me of dump­ing drugs. The of­fi­cer start to hit me some kicks. I swear to them that I was not ly­ing but they kept hit­ting me,” he added.

His wife Christi­na Ram­saran said when she heard of her hus­band’s ar­rest she went to the T&T Coast Guard base in Ce­dros but the of­fi­cers did not im­me­di­ate­ly come out.

“When I fi­nal­ly got to them I told them I will take it fur­ther be­cause there are many drug boats work­ing and they not pick­ing those up on the radar. They com­ing to as­sault the fish­er­men,” she added.

She called for le­gal ad­vice say­ing many of the fish­er­men had fam­i­lies to take care of and had no choice but to turn to the sea to earn a liveli­hood.

“We have a three-week-old ba­by. My hus­band got laid off from Forestry and he took a loan and bought a boat and en­gine to work in the sea. We have three chil­dren to mind and it is very dif­fi­cult for us,” Ram­saran said.

Mean­while, coun­cil­lor for the area Shankar Teelucks­ingh said this was not the on­ly group of fish­er­men who were de­tained.

Teelucks­ingh said even though fish­er­men were deemed es­sen­tial by the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty some arms of law en­force­ment were ha­rass­ing fish­er­men for ply­ing their trade af­ter 6 pm.

“The Min­is­ter must give clear guide­lines to the law en­force­ment of­fi­cers who are caus­ing pan­ic among the fish­ing com­mu­ni­ty. Fish­ing oc­curs based on the change of the tide. Right now it is shrimp time and shrimp holds in the night, not in the day. I am call­ing on law en­force­ment au­thor­i­ties to en­force the law but we are al­so ask­ing them to com­mu­ni­cate bet­ter with the fish­er­folk so they can all work to­geth­er and achieve,” Teelucks­ingh added.

Mean­while, pub­lic af­fairs of­fi­cer at the T&T Coast Guard Lieu­tenant Khadi­ja Lamy in a state­ment said on 19 April 2020, while con­duct­ing bor­der se­cu­ri­ty pa­trols, Coast Guard of­fi­cers in­ter­cept­ed a ves­sel named ‘AMAN­DA’ off the South­west­ern coast of Trinidad.

“The ves­sel had been ob­served cross­ing the bor­der from Venezuela in­to T&T wa­ters. On board were three male T&T na­tion­als. Up­on search­ing the ves­sel, a car­go of shrimp was dis­cov­ered. The ves­sel was de­tained and its crew and car­go were hand­ed over to po­lice, Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion and Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion,” Lamy said.

Last week, Young said while fish­er­men will still be al­lowed to ply their trade they must abide by the same so­cial dis­tanc­ing pro­to­cols as oth­er es­sen­tial ser­vices.