Rhon­dor Dowlat

The be­reaved fam­i­ly of mur­dered Aranguez taxi dri­ver Bal­li­ram Bal­go­b­in has salut­ed the 70-plus taxi dri­vers who yes­ter­day staged a silent protest in sol­i­dar­i­ty and for in­creased safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures for them.

Yes­ter­day from as ear­ly as 6 am, taxi dri­vers from the Aranguez Taxi As­so­ci­a­tion, to­geth­er with those who ply the Don Miguel/Aranguez route, lined their ve­hi­cles along the taxi stand at Rail­way Road in San Juan. They stood in silent protest and sol­i­dar­i­ty over the cold-blood­ed mur­der of their col­league and over the in­creas­ing rob­beries and car­jack­ings in the area.

Speak­ing with the T&T Guardian, as­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Ram­chan­dra Temal said they are call­ing for the im­me­di­ate in­stal­la­tion of CCTV sur­veil­lance cam­eras on the taxi stand. About 800 peo­ple, in­clud­ing stu­dents, com­mute on a dai­ly ba­sis on that route alone, he said. He added that they have met sev­er­al times with the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s Traf­fic Branch and asked for the in­stal­la­tion cam­eras as a de­ter­rent se­cu­ri­ty mea­sure.

“But to date noth­ing yet and look what has hap­pened…at least if the cam­eras were there the po­lice could have looked at the footage and see who were the four men that en­tered the taxi.”

Bal­go­b­in, 55, was killed dur­ing a car­jack­ing at about 4 pm on Wednes­day. The in­ci­dent took place at Ali Dri­ve, which is lo­cat­ed two streets away from where he lived. Po­lice said he was at­tacked by a rob­ber who posed as a pas­sen­ger to steal his car, a Nis­san Ti­i­da. He was a re­tired sol­dier from the T&T De­fence Force and the fa­ther of three — two sons and a daugh­ter.

Temal de­scribed Bal­go­b­in as a qui­et man.

“He was so hum­ble and qui­et. All of us knew him well and knew him to be quite a good man. He was al­so well known in the com­mu­ni­ty.”

Com­muter An­dre Lewis told the T&T Guardian that al­though he was strand­ed for al­most two hours be­cause of the protest, sup­port­ed the taxi dri­ver’s stance.

“If this is what it takes for them to be heard and for their con­cerns to be ad­dressed, well so be it. I can’t ar­gue or be vex be­cause crime has gone out of con­trol and peo­ple suf­fer­ing.”

An­oth­er com­muter, who wished not to be iden­ti­fied, said all of T&T should stand up to crime.

“I find peo­ple too qui­et, but wait un­til the killing reach in their house…just now it will the rate it go­ing. I can’t vex nah. The po­lice and the Gov­ern­ment don’t care and not do­ing noth­ing.”

Bal­go­b­in’s son, An­drew, told the T&T Guardian that he and his fam­i­ly were touched by the ac­tions of his fa­ther’s taxi dri­ver col­leagues.

“We re­spect them and re­spect what they have done on be­half of my fa­ther. It shows you how re­spect­ed my dad was and we re­spect them for stand­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty,” An­drew said.

He added that peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty are scared be­cause of the ris­ing crime.

“They are scared and these dri­vers are al­so stand­ing in fear for their safe­ty. Some­thing needs to be done for peo­ple to feel safe again.”

An­drew said his fam­i­ly is pray­ing for jus­tice in the in­ter­im.

Pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer of the San Juan Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion, Abrahim Ali, in ex­tend­ing con­do­lences to the Bal­go­b­in fam­i­ly, called on act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Stephen Williams to “give the taxi dri­vers what they are call­ing for.”

He al­so called for the in­tro­duc­tion of joint army/po­lice pa­trols through­out the area, in­clud­ing Barataria and El So­cor­ro.

“When there is that height­ened po­lice and sol­dier pres­ence pa­trolling round the clock it will serve as a de­ter­rent to the crim­i­nals. The peo­ple will feel safe too,” Ali said.

“It is im­por­tant in al­le­vi­at­ing the crime sit­u­a­tion be­cause it will have a neg­a­tive im­pact on the econ­o­my. Peo­ple need to trav­el to go to work and to go shop­ping.”

Fu­ner­al arrange­ments are yet to be made.