RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Fol­low­ing the rob­bery of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment coun­cil­lor Ram­c­hand Ra­jbal-Maraj on Thurs­day, Co­or­di­na­tor of the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Cham­bers Jai Lelad­hars­ingh has called for harsh­er an­ti-crime poli­cies.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Lelad­hars­ingh said crime re­mains un­man­age­able.

“There is a lack of po­lit­i­cal will to deal with it. The army should im­me­di­ate­ly be­gin joint pa­trols in all com­mu­ni­ties and the Gov­ern­ment should use dig­i­tal cam­eras with fa­cial recog­ni­tion soft­ware and glob­al po­si­tion­ing soft­ware as well,” he said.

Lelad­hars­ingh lament­ed the in­crease in home in­va­sions, par­tic­u­lar­ly in South and Cen­tral Trinidad.

“The Gov­ern­ment needs to am­pli­fy their style of lead­er­ship and show the de­ter­mi­na­tion to re­duce crime by hav­ing the TTPS work with the Of­fice of the DPP to ar­rest known gang lead­ers, per­sons in­volved in the nar­cotics rings, il­le­gal gam­bling, hu­man traf­fick­ing and pros­ti­tu­tion,” he said.

Say­ing law-abid­ing cit­i­zens were at the mer­cy of crim­i­nals, Lelad­hars­ingh said all arms of law en­force­ment must co­or­di­nate to tack­le the scourge of crime.

“The Gov­ern­ment needs to en­gage and meet with the coun­try’s dif­fer­ent stake­hold­ers to craft a holis­tic plan to ad­dress crime. This prob­lem can­not be solved by the Gov­ern­ment alone,” he added.

He be­lieves satel­lite tech­nol­o­gy is need­ed in the crime fight.

“The TTPS can­not con­tin­ue to op­er­ate as a 20th-cen­tu­ry or­gan­i­sa­tion, but must take the quan­tum leap and em­brace tech­nol­o­gy, deep and ef­fec­tive in­tel­li­gence, us­ing satel­lite tech­nol­o­gy, dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion, use of drones and us­ing trans­port he­li­copters to make law en­force­ment such as the Boe­ing CH-47 Chi­nook,” he added.

He said the Ju­di­cia­ry al­so had a part to play in cur­tail­ing crime.

“The onus is on the Chief Jus­tice to have court rul­ings dis­pensed with­in the short­est pos­si­ble time and not have years pass and rul­ings are still pend­ing in some cas­es over ten years. This is deeply wor­ri­some,” he con­tend­ed.

He added: “A so­ci­ety can­not progress nor move for­ward un­less the dis­pute res­o­lu­tion set­tle­ment sys­tem and the courts op­er­ate ef­fi­cient­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly.”

Maraj, who is the im­me­di­ate past pres­i­dent of the Cou­va Point Lisas Cham­ber and one of the founders of the con­fed­er­a­tion, was robbed on Thurs­day by a man who went to his home seek­ing help.

Maraj, who al­so is a Jus­tice of the Peace, said he was leav­ing home to go to a meet­ing at the Cou­va Tabaquite/Tal­paro Cor­po­ra­tion when a well-dressed man asked him if he could get a WASA cer­tifi­cate stamped. The man then pulled out a gun, gagged him, took him up­stairs and robbed him of a quan­ti­ty of jew­ellery, cash and his Toy­ota Hilux van.

No ar­rests have yet been made.