To­ba­go po­lice are search­ing for a man who called on all obeah men on the is­land to unite to “deal” with li­cens­ing of­fi­cers in­volved in the on­go­ing an­ti-crime joint ex­er­cis­es. ACP Col­lis Hazel told Guardian Me­dia that the po­lice are work­ing to lo­cate the man, and once found, he will be ar­rest­ed.

This fol­lows the re­lease of a vi­ral video in which the man pub­licly called for To­ba­go obeah prac­ti­tion­ers to unite against what he de­scribed as “an at­tack on To­bag­o­ni­ans.” In an­oth­er video, the head of an an­i­mal car­cass is al­tered me­ters away from a road ex­er­cise in Rox­bor­ough, near the Cyd Gray Com­plex.

In the video, men light can­dles and place red ixo­ras (flow­ers) around the car­cass while say­ing “kill them.” In an­oth­er video, they lift the car­cass up and shout­ed “obeah” at the of­fi­cers. The li­cens­ing of­fi­cers seemed un­both­ered by the rit­u­al and con­tin­ued the ex­er­cise The ex­er­cis­es start­ed over a week ago and will con­tin­ue through­out this week.

Be­cause of this, ten­sions among To­bag­o­ni­ans ap­pear to be ris­ing due to the in­con­ve­nience caused by the road ex­er­cis­es. A fly­er call­ing for a to­tal shut­down on Fri­day and this com­ing Mon­day is now cir­cu­lat­ing.

In re­sponse, Snr Supt Rod­hill Kirk said that these op­er­a­tions are not an at­tack on the peo­ple but a mea­sure to sti­fle crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties. Kirk said, “The in­con­ve­nience is for the greater good. Peo­ple tend to get sen­si­tive to this… You have called on us to do more and you keep say­ing ‘Do more, and the po­lice in To­ba­go are not do­ing enough’.

It’s not to tar­get and op­press any­body.” He said the po­lice will ar­rest and pros­e­cute any­one in­volved in lead­ing il­le­gal protests or in­cit­ing un­rest in the com­ing days. Trans­port Com­mis­sion­er Clive Clarke did not want to com­ment on the mat­ter.

How­ev­er, he briefly said his team re­mains un­fazed. He said this mat­ter is for the po­lice.