Cair­sa Lee

Ch­agua­nas May­or Faaiq Mo­hammed says busi­ness­men in Cen­tral Trinidad have backed out of sup­port­ing this year’s Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions in Fe­lic­i­ty, be­cause of how wide­spread ex­tor­tion has be­come.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at Ca­can­dee Road last Fri­day as res­i­dents dec­o­rat­ed ahead of the Fes­ti­val of Lights, Mo­hammed said many busi­ness­men in the area are un­will­ing to come for­ward and spon­sor events. In­stead, he said, they just want to lay low.

“Be­cause of the state of the crime with­in the coun­try and many busi­ness­es, es­pe­cial­ly cen­tral busi­ness­men, are be­ing faced with ex­tor­tion right now... busi­ness­men are be­ing very scep­ti­cal, safe­guard­ing them­selves and kind of try­ing to stay in­doors,” he said.

Dur­ing this time of year, thou­sands of peo­ple flock to Fe­lic­i­ty to ex­pe­ri­ence Ram­leela, which pre­cedes Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions. Fe­lic­i­ty is known as the “Di­vali hub” of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

How­ev­er, the may­or said ex­tor­tion has reached the com­mu­ni­ty, in­clud­ing the Pierre Road and the Char­lieville ar­eas.

“We even get­ting news re­cent­ly that it has reached close to home now,” Mo­hammed said.

Fe­lic­i­ty coun­cil­lor Sun­dar Jookoo con­firmed this. He said busi­ness­men are care­ful of how they spend their mon­ey to avoid be­ing tar­get­ed.

“The crime is out of con­trol and peo­ple have no re­gard for life,” he said.

Jookoo said ap­prox­i­mate­ly 30 per cent of the busi­ness­es in the area con­tributed to this year’s fes­tiv­i­ties, but not­ed in pre­vi­ous years that per­cent­age was much high­er.

“The oth­ers said they were scared,” he said.

He said there was not much they could do but lob­by with the coun­cil for more pro­tec­tion in Fe­lic­i­ty but said he un­der­stands their lim­i­ta­tions.

“The Mu­nic­i­pal po­lice have a very poor strength cur­rent­ly but they are ex­pect­ed to boost up soon and we just hop­ing and pray­ing that it can hap­pen be­fore the Christ­mas pe­ri­od,” he said.

Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly said he has re­ceived nu­mer­ous re­ports of ex­tor­tion in his con­stituen­cy and many com­plaints about groups of peo­ple ex­tort­ing busi­ness­es in the area. He added the threats have in­ten­si­fied and the de­mands for mon­ey have been in­creas­ing.

“The fam­i­ly telling me that they were re­ceiv­ing calls telling them that they knew where spe­cif­ic chil­dren were stay­ing, they in­di­cat­ing that if the ex­tor­tion monies were not paid by a cer­tain time body parts will be show­ing up,” he ex­plained.

The MP said he knew about three busi­ness own­ers who had closed their doors and left T&T, all in the space of 18 months.

“When it reach­es a cer­tain lev­el of threats to the fam­i­lies which in­volves the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of their chil­dren and the el­der­ly of their fam­i­ly, I think those busi­ness per­sons will prop­er­ly have a fear to take the in­for­ma­tion to the po­lice,” he said.

Just last week, the head of the Ex­tor­tion Task Force, As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Richard Smith, said he had re­ceived no new re­ports of ex­tor­tion and urged vic­tims to come for­ward.

He said his task force has so far re­ceived 28 re­ports of ex­tor­tion from busi­ness peo­ple and cit­i­zens across the coun­try.