Scrap iron work­ers joined with taxi dri­vers of Bar­rack­pore in protest ac­tion yes­ter­day, block­ing the roads with heaps of grav­el, burn­ing tyres and oth­er de­bris.

Sev­er­al parts of Rochard Road, Num­ber Two, Bar­rack­pore Trace and Rochard Dou­glas Road were blocked, with the po­lice do­ing their bests to quell protests. In one sce­nario, three men who were at a site jumped in­to a riv­er to elude cap­ture.

Speak­ing at a block­ade site, Ramesh Ram­sa­roop, a scrap iron work­er, said he was so frus­trat­ed that he was will­ing to sell his van and buy an AR15 gun.

“We can­not even af­ford to buy but­ter for my chil­dren. A month now, no work. I don’t know where to get mon­ey,” he cried.

The Gov­ern­ment an­nounced a ban on scrap iron ex­ports on Au­gust 15.

Say­ing they will not stop their protests, Ram­sa­roop said the com­mu­ni­ty of Bar­rack­pore was for­got­ten.

“The roads are in a ter­ri­ble con­di­tion.”

He added: “What you do­ing, they mak­ing us crim­i­nals. I fed up with so many things I want. I want them to re­open the scrap iron (in­dus­try).”

Busi­ness­man Randy Ram­ta­hal said his trucks could not go out to work.

“On one hand, we dis­agree with the ap­proach but we have to un­der­stand what the peo­ple are go­ing through,” Ram­ta­hal said.

“Look at the con­di­tion of the road. In some in­stances, you have to go down in­to a drain and come back up and that is the nor­mal road. Look at scrap iron­work­ers, you close down the in­dus­try af­ter all the ca­ble has been stolen. All those fel­las are un­em­ployed,” Ram­ta­hal said.

Lament­ing the spate of crime, Ram­ta­hal added: “Re­cent­ly, an aged cou­ple in Num­ber Five was robbed and tied up for the whole night. Rob­bery af­ter rob­bery in Bar­rack­pore.”

An­tho­ny Steel­ing, an­oth­er scrap iron deal­er, said they could no longer face an un­cer­tain fu­ture.

“We want our chil­dren to have the same op­tions as oth­er chil­dren. We can­not af­ford to buy books for them,” he added.

Bar­rack­pore Taxi Dri­vers As­so­ci­a­tion vice pres­i­dent Kei­th Balkissoon said they were fed of fre­quent floods and no wa­ter in the pipes.

“There is a ma­jor bridge in Num­ber 2, which is a Bai­ley bridge, that blocks all the wa­ter from St Marys and Moru­ga. When rain falls its on­ly flood. We are call­ing on Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan, it’s about time you do some­thing. We have no wa­ter in the taps. We fed up,” Balkissoon said.

The res­i­dents have set up signs at Num­ber Two Junc­tion to high­light their frus­tra­tion.

Mean­while, MP for Na­pari­ma Rod­ney Charles is­sued a state­ment last night say­ing ris­ing un­em­ploy­ment rates, in­creas­ing pover­ty and in­come in­equal­i­ty were the main rea­sons for protests.

“With the Gov­ern­ment’s ill-con­ceived, six-month ban on the ex­port of scrap iron, cit­i­zens at the low­er end of the so­cial lad­der feel that they are es­pe­cial­ly be­ing tar­get­ed, and are fright­ened for their very sur­vival and fu­ture,” Charles said.

“It is time that this Row­ley regime un­der­stands that they have to serve all cit­i­zens and ad­dress the needs of every­one. In 2022, cit­i­zens should not be made to feel like the on­ly way this Gov­ern­ment lis­tens is through fiery protests and burn­ing tyres.”