DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day ex­pressed sym­pa­thy to Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, who was robbed at gun­point on Tues­day in St Joseph. How­ev­er, UNC deputy leader Dr Roodal Mooni­lal crit­i­cised the min­is­ter and sug­gest­ed that neg­li­gence con­tributed to the “un­for­tu­nate in­ci­dent.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she em­pathis­es with all vic­tims of crime, re­gard­less of po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion, in­clud­ing Min­is­ter Deyals­ingh.

“It doesn’t mat­ter what po­lit­i­cal par­ty a per­son sup­ports—UNC, PNM, TPP. I will care for them; that is my du­ty and my per­son­al­i­ty,” she said.

Nonethe­less, she was scep­ti­cal that crime reach­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s doorstep would prompt any mean­ing­ful change and point­ed out that “4,500 mur­ders, in­clud­ing the bru­tal killings of chil­dren, dai­ly vi­o­lent home in­va­sions, rapes, ex­tor­tions, and out-of-con­trol vi­o­lent crime have not prompt­ed a com­pe­tent mul­ti­fac­eted an­ti-crime ap­proach from this Gov­ern­ment.”

“I don’t think this rob­bery of Min­is­ter Deyals­ingh will spur any pos­i­tive change; this gov­ern­ment does not care,” she as­sert­ed.

Mooni­lal echoed this sen­ti­ment, stat­ing that the min­is­ter’s ac­tions made him a “soft tar­get” for crim­i­nals. He not­ed that the po­lice ser­vice has con­sis­tent­ly ad­vised cit­i­zens to avoid wear­ing jew­ellery in pub­lic.

“I was shocked. Mr Deyals­ingh ought not to be re­al­ly sit­ting in front of a rum shop adorn­ing him­self with os­ten­ta­tious and showy jew­ellery. We have had sev­er­al trav­el ad­vi­sories from for­eign gov­ern­ments and re­peat­ed press con­fer­ences by the TTPS in­form­ing all cit­i­zens that they ought to take care. And part of that is, of course, not to adorn your­self with showy jew­ellery and pa­rade in the pub­lic space like that. I thought that Mr Deyals­ingh ought to know bet­ter and ought to have been a lit­tle more aware of the sur­round­ings where he was plac­ing him­self,” Mooni­lal said.

“I hope this ex­pe­ri­ence serves as a wake-up call for those in Gov­ern­ment, prompt­ing se­ri­ous ac­tion and poli­cies to bet­ter pa­trol and se­cure our so­ci­ety. How­ev­er, I fear that Min­is­ter Hinds will re­main un­re­spon­sive, and noth­ing will change. To­mor­row, it could be some­one else. I urge cit­i­zens not to be naive and be­lieve this in­ci­dent will im­pact the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to fight­ing crime.”

Mooni­lal al­so crit­i­cised Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters for be­ing dis­con­nect­ed from the re­al­i­ties fac­ing the pub­lic.

“Mr Deyals­ingh seemed out of touch with re­al­i­ty, per­haps be­liev­ing he was above be­com­ing a vic­tim due to his po­si­tion.

“Crime does not dis­crim­i­nate; it af­fects every­one equal­ly. The crim­i­nal el­e­ments do not care if you are a min­is­ter or a shop­keep­er. By flaunt­ing jew­ellery, he made him­self a tar­get. In hind­sight, it was un­wise,” he said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the UNC had sup­port­ed 37 pieces of an­ti-crime leg­is­la­tion but the Gov­ern­ment failed to im­ple­ment them due to “in­com­pe­tence.” She added that she had pre­sent­ed nu­mer­ous an­ti-crime pro­pos­als in her bud­get re­sponse which were ig­nored.

The Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) mean­while con­demned those ex­press­ing sat­is­fac­tion over Deyals­ingh’s rob­bery and those blam­ing in­di­vid­u­als in at-risk com­mu­ni­ties.

“The ten­den­cy to as­sign blame to in­di­vid­u­als from mar­gin­alised com­mu­ni­ties high­lights the un­der­ly­ing is­sues we face,” the par­ty said in a state­ment.

“As Dr Win­ston Dook­er­an not­ed years ago, ‘Trinidad and To­ba­go will not rise un­til Laven­tille ris­es.’ This sen­ti­ment re­mains rel­e­vant to­day. Any gov­ern­ment that ig­nores this re­al­i­ty will con­tin­ue to strug­gle with es­ca­lat­ing crime rates.”

The COP said it re­ject­ed the “it’s good for him/them” men­tal­i­ty cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia, and ap­pealed for more fo­cus to be placed on iden­ti­fy­ing and ad­dress­ing the root caus­es of crime.

Warn­ing from the Health Min­istry

The Health Min­istry has dis­tanced it­self from a Face­book page named “PNM St Joseph” that it said false­ly claimed to rep­re­sent Min­is­ter Deyals­ingh.

“We en­cour­age mem­bers of the pub­lic to avoid en­gag­ing with or shar­ing in­for­ma­tion from this fraud­u­lent page. Steps have been tak­en to re­port the page and we urge the in­di­vid­ual/s be­hind same to cease and de­sist from their ac­tions im­me­di­ate­ly,” the min­istry stat­ed.

“Any post on this fake pro­file is to be ig­nored as it is cal­cu­lat­ed to cause po­lit­i­cal mis­chief. In ad­di­tion, this fake pro­file does not re­flect the Min­is­ter’s val­ues as Min­is­ter of Health and a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment.”

The min­istry said all its of­fi­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tions are shared through ver­i­fied chan­nels.

De­spite be­ing shak­en by the rob­bery, Min­is­ter Deyals­ingh told Guardian Me­dia that he re­turned to work yes­ter­day and even vis­it­ed his con­stituen­cy of­fice. He em­pha­sised that the peo­ple’s work must con­tin­ue.