SHAS­TRI BOODAN

GML Cor­re­spon­dent

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Kei­th Scot­land has called on vic­tims of ex­tor­tion to come for­ward. He said the An­ti-Ex­tor­tion Unit is ready and wait­ing, but it is up to the vic­tims to seek as­sis­tance.

“They can­not be ef­fec­tive if the peo­ple do not make the re­ports.  That’s the on­ly way they can be ef­fec­tive,” he said.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on Tues­day, Scot­land said South and Cen­tral are the two ar­eas with the high­est lev­els of re­port­ed ex­tor­tion. Scot­land said he does not rest and deals with na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sues around the clock.

“We are very much aware of the con­cerns of the pop­u­la­tion,” he said, “and if the crim­i­nals are not sleep­ing we are not sleep­ing, we are work­ing.”

He said both he and Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds have plans to deal with crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty for the up­com­ing Christ­mas sea­son. Scot­land said joint po­lice/army pa­trols will con­tin­ue.

Bal­dath Ma­haraj, pres­i­dent of the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (CCIC), said with Min­is­ter Scot­land's in­ter­ven­tion and the es­tab­lish­ment of the An­ti-Ex­tor­tion Unit, progress has been made in ad­dress­ing ex­tor­tion in Ch­agua­nas.

Ma­haraj said since these mea­sures were im­ple­ment­ed, there have not been re­cent re­ports of ex­tor­tion tar­get­ing CCIC mem­bers.

He said, “This marks a pos­i­tive step to­ward restor­ing con­fi­dence and se­cu­ri­ty with­in the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty.”

“The re­turn of a vic­tim who went pub­lic, with­out fur­ther ha­rass­ment, is a tes­ta­ment to the ef­fec­tive­ness of these ini­tia­tives,” he said. “How­ev­er, the CCIC re­mains cau­tious and em­pha­sis­es the im­por­tance of sus­tained vig­i­lance. While the ab­sence of re­cent re­ports is en­cour­ag­ing, the Cham­ber can­not say with cer­tain­ty that the is­sue has been en­tire­ly erad­i­cat­ed. Crim­i­nal el­e­ments still ex­ist, and it is vi­tal to main­tain a proac­tive ap­proach to en­sure this down­ward trend con­tin­ues.”

Ma­haraj said the CCIC urges law en­force­ment and gov­ern­ment stake­hold­ers to con­tin­ue build­ing on this mo­men­tum. He said the es­tab­lish­ment of the an­ti-ex­tor­tion unit, cou­pled with in­creased pa­trols and en­gage­ment with the com­mu­ni­ty, has laid a sol­id foun­da­tion. How­ev­er, he said on­go­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion and reg­u­lar up­dates will be es­sen­tial to en­sur­ing that the safe­ty of busi­ness­es and res­i­dents is not com­pro­mised.

“The Cham­ber al­so calls on its mem­bers to re­main alert and to re­port any sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ties to the au­thor­i­ties. By work­ing to­geth­er and main­tain­ing a ro­bust sys­tem of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, the com­mu­ni­ty can help pre­vent any resur­gence of crim­i­nal be­hav­iour, en­sur­ing a safer Ch­agua­nas for every­one,” he said.

The An­ti-Ex­tor­tion Unit, head­ed by ACP Smith, deals with ex­tor­tion across T&T. The unit con­sists of 12 po­lice­men, in­clud­ing a spe­cial­ist an­a­lyst.