Moru­ga women say they are ter­ri­fied since the kid­nap­ping and mur­der of An­drea Bharatt and they are de­mand­ing bet­ter pub­lic trans­porta­tion and pro­tec­tion.

Hun­dreds of res­i­dents from var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ty and re­li­gious groups in­clud­ing the In­de­pen­dent Move­ment of St Marys/Hin­dus­tan, St Mary’s Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil, St Mary’s Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry stu­dents and staff, Cowen Hamil­ton stu­dents and staff as well as Moru­ga Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil par­tic­i­pat­ed in the vig­il and march.

Among those in at­ten­dance was Moru­ga MP Michelle Ben­jamin who ex­pressed sol­i­dar­i­ty with the women’s call.

Ben­jamin said the rur­al area had many women who were forced to work late at nights and who de­pend on PH taxis to take them home.

“We are very dis­turbed by what is hap­pen­ing in our coun­try. Some of my con­stituents have no choice but to trav­el. They have to use P cars to get home. They have to stay out late at nights. This is why we found it nec­es­sary to stand to­geth­er to call for leg­is­la­tion to be placed for the le­gal­iza­tion of pep­per spray and to call for the reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion of PH cars. It is the time be­cause enough is enough,” Ben­jamin said.

She said she was heart­ened by the out­pour­ing of sol­i­dar­i­ty shown by cit­i­zens across the coun­try.

“This is show­ing that the en­tire coun­try is stand­ing to­geth­er. If you look, since An­drea’s body was found, through­out the coun­try in all ar­eas, peo­ple are com­ing on board to let their voic­es be heard,” Ben­jamin said.

Mean­while, sec­re­tary of the St Mary’s Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil Ariel Saun­ders said the fear and anx­i­ety grip­ping the Moru­ga women were re­flec­tive of what women were ex­pe­ri­enc­ing na­tion­al­ly.

“I would like to call for the reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion of non-lethal weapons so that women can de­fend and pro­tect them­selves,” he said.

“I al­so want us to have a ful­ly func­tion­al pub­lic trans­port ser­vice. We want a bet­ter col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the Op­po­si­tion and the Gov­ern­ment and the pas­sage of leg­is­la­tion that will be in the in­ter­est of the peo­ple,” Saun­ders said.

He al­so said while the night­ly vig­ils were im­por­tant and should not stop, peo­ple need­ed to fol­low the COVID-19 pro­to­cols.

“It is not enough to just say that all COVID-19 pro­to­cols will be fol­lowed. Peo­ple who are or­ga­niz­ing these vig­ils should set up a Task Force to mon­i­tor the vig­ils which can be very emo­tion­al and en­sure that peo­ple fol­low the guide­lines,” Saun­ders said. 

Just last week, sev­er­al women in Moru­ga ex­pressed con­cerns about the spate of crime. Res­i­dent Hes­per Ali- Dar­soo said out­siders were com­ing in and ex­e­cut­ing a se­ries of bur­glar­ies and home in­va­sions in the qui­et com­mu­ni­ty. 

She said her moth­er was tied up and had to dri­ve with her hands bound to the St Mary’s Po­lice post to get help.

Busi­ness­man Ro­han Kunge­be­har­rysingh said rob­bers broke in­to his home and he called E999 but was nev­er giv­en any as­sis­tance. 

The res­i­dents called for the reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion of pep­per spray and in­creased po­lice pa­trols.