Still trau­ma­tised by an ar­son at­tack that left a neigh­bour dead and three of his rel­a­tives nurs­ing in­juries at hos­pi­tal, res­i­dents of the Ex­change Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment in Cou­va yes­ter­day called for bet­ter street light­ing and more po­lice pa­trols in the area.

On Wednes­day, Ty­rone Fos­ter, 25, a ter­mi­nal work­er at the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate died af­ter be­com­ing trapped in his home as it was gut­ted dur­ing an ar­son at­tack. His un­cle, Lester Fos­ter, re­mained in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day, along with his girl­friend Lay­la Richards and moth­er Lor­na Cuffie-Fos­ter, who al­so suf­fered in­juries.

The du­plex at 27 Anand Yankaran Street Ex­ten­sion was fire­bombed around 3 am. The T&T Fire Ser­vice said an ac­cel­er­ant such as gaso­line may have been used, since there were fire trails on the lawn.

Yes­ter­day, res­i­dent Rocky Daniel, 57, said the com­mu­ni­ty has been try­ing for the past four years to get street lights re­paired. He said the dark­ness at­tracts un­to­ward ac­tiv­i­ties in the area.

Cou­va South MP Rudranath In­dars­ingh said he had al­so writ­ten to Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les and the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) to get prop­er street­lights.

In­dars­ingh said, “The Gov­ern­ment, af­ter nine years, now re­alis­es that there is crime in HDC de­vel­op­ments. There was this brazen at­tack at Ex­change, the shoot­ing at Harpe Place and the mur­ders at Orop­une. If there was a re­al­ly fo­cused and all-out at­tack on crime and crim­i­nals, what­ev­er hap­pened at Ex­change yes­ter­day and at HSM Mo­tors this morn­ing, crim­i­nals would have been on the run.

“We see law-abid­ing cit­i­zens on the run in­stead from crim­i­nals. The Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty con­tin­ues to boast of fight­ing crime and we are not see­ing the re­sults. They are hold­ing news con­fer­ences to ma­nip­u­late the minds of the pop­u­la­tion, yet crime is go­ing up. When you have brazen fire­bomb­ing of a per­son’s home and busi­ness the pop­u­la­tion can­not cope.”