Reasons from Baksh

IF ANY member of Parliament had compelling personal reasons for supporting the Police Reform Bills it was, in our view, Opposition MP Nizam Baksh whose son Ashmead was kidnapped and killed seven weeks ago. Baksh who voted with the UNC to block the bills related, in the debate, the unfortunate experience he had with the Police with respect to his son’s abduction, describing the kind of disinterested and inept response that the package of legislation before the House was intended to address.

The unconcerned attitude of the Police which the MP encountered when he went to the Barrackpore Station to report that his son was missing is actually endemic in the service. This lackadaisical, don’t-want-to-be-bothered reaction found at police stations throughout the country is what citizens have been complaining about for ages. Over the years, this newspaper has received several letters from persons, victims of crime, recounting the frustrating and aggravating experiences they have had at police stations. his attitude, in fact, accounts in large measure for the general ineffectiveness of the Police Service. It has become pervasive over a long period of time for two main reasons; first, the failure of proper management at various levels and, secondly, the cumbersome bureaucratic process of discipline which the majority of officers find too bothersome to undertake.

The member for Naparima unfortunately got a taste of it in the tragic case of his son’s kidnapping, and one would have expected that he, more than any other parliamentarian, would have had irresistible personal reasons for supporting legislation designed to restructure the administration of the Police Service, to revolutionise its management, to make it more accountable and efficient and so to exorcise the laissez faire attitude that now permeates its ranks. ut beyond what he met at the Barrackpore Police Station, Baksh also related what happened when the AKS came to his home to set up an adjoining office. He was amazed to find that the only equipment they had was a Caller ID. Information he received about certain vehicles in the area could not be checked with the transport authorities to determine whether the vehicles were stolen. The member for Naparima made the ominous claim that AKS officers knew about certain properties he had although he had never spoken to anybody about them. He said initially they had advised him not to pay the kidnappers, yet they were later asking him about how much ransom he could pay. Baksh created further doubts about the AKS investigators when he said that after he left home “they were talking to my children trying to ascertain the value of my assets.”

Baksh’s account of his experience with the Police makes disturbing reading, but it reveals chronic weaknesses in the service which the Bills were intended finally and vigorously to eliminate. The tragic episode of the kidnapping and murder of his son, in fact, provided strong reason for the UNC Opposition also to support the Bills which Basdeo Panday, when he was UNC Prime Minister, tabled in Parliament. In our view, the Opposition has failed abjectly to offer the country any good or sensible reason why they have now decided to block their own Bills. Instead of being part of the solution, they must now be regarded as part of the problem in the urgent fight against crime. n this regard, the country should not disagree with PM Manning when he says, to the extent that the Police fail, the blood of victims is on UNC hands.