Crime a disease in Trinidad

THE EDITOR: Kindly permit me a space in your newspaper to express my deepest concerns about this country’s safety. I am a very disturbed and disappointed citizen of Trinidad, who is not at all satisfied with the way in which crime is being handled by the government and the Minister of National Security. There are lots of innocent people who are being murdered and kidnapped for no reason given at all.

Just imagine an innocent girl like Annesher Rangoo, being kidnapped from her home and then found dead five days after near her home. No one could understand the pain that family is going through, unless they have experienced it in their life. Each and every God given day, crime is becoming more like a menace and a disease in Trinidad. Generally, I think crime is an act that violates the criminal law and is punishable by the State. There are many irreparable cataclysmic social eruptions seen in Trinidad. I will have to say that criminal misconduct is demonstrated daily in our society at all levels of our social structure. I also think that everyone needs to underscore the fact that the police service is a microcosm of the society and as such, once there is crime in the wider society, there will always be a probability that some criminal elements reside in the police service. The kind of people who are police officers and SRP’s, I have to wonder if those people who do police recruiting were thinking at the time whether or not these people were right for the job.

In my opinion they give a general impression as if they don’t care who gets robbed, kidnapped or murdered. And by all means, please understand me when I say that it seems there are far more African men and women in the police service rather than Indians (who are trying their very best to seek employment in the police service; but are being turned down). I am not saying all these things out of racial tension, but it’s all because I am very angry and disturbed by what is presently happening. Annesher was an innocent girl and she didn’t deserve to die so young in a horrible way such as that. Please, I am asking that all citizens should conscientiously bond together to fight the common enemy known as crime, which is indeed a living and human phenomenon in this country.

DEVIKA SOOKNANAN
Diamond Village,
San Fernando