AN UNFORTUNATE INCIDENT

We regret the death by reported suicide of the Principal of the ASJA Boys’ College, Charlieville, Dr Nazam Shah, who was charged with drunken driving on the instructions of the Commissioner of Police, Trevor Paul. According to reports, Shah was seen driving in an erratic way on Orange Grove Road in Arouca on Friday night, and it is of course the duty of law enforcement officers to protect the public who might have been at risk from such behaviour on the road. The fatality rate on our roads is too horrendous enough for any policeman, commissioner or otherwise, to ingore Shah’s apparently dangerous driving.

Reports indicate that he was charged with drunken driving. How was this established? Was some scientific test done to discover the extent of alcohol in Shah’s blood? We ask the question not only because of the sadness of this event but in the interest of fairness. We repeat our great concern at the heavy loss of life on our roads and rush to commend any policeman who acts when decisive action is required. Would that all policemen were forever vigilant! This newspaper has been in the forefront demanding that effective road patrols be placed on duty on the nation’s highways, main roads and secondary roads in light of the uncomfortable number of accidents, many of them fatal, on the nation’s roadways.

Also, the ASJA Boys’ College principal was a Sergeant of the Special Reserve Police which makes the circumstances on Friday night even worse. It is regrettable that the person behind the wheel of the van was Dr Shah, whose lifelong commitment to education and achievement had distinguished him as an educator, a person and as a student. As a primary school pupil he had stumbled, educationally that is, when he failed at the then Common Entrance examinations. Young Shah would never look back. He cut lawns, tethered cows and worked hard at his studies in a determined effort to achieve set goals. In 2004 he was featured in Newsday following on his gaining a PhD from the Sherwood University of England.

Only recently, Dr Shah was promoted to the rank of Sergeant in the Special Reserve after having been a part-time SRP for some 27 years. Had Dr Shah appeared before a magistrate for drunken driving, given his position as an educator, as an active member of ASJA and as a special reserve policeman, he would have been in big trouble. Apparently, however, Shah appears to have preferred not to face what, as an exemplar, would have been utter humiliation and sadly took his own life. We sympathise with his family and his students. Meanwhile, not having been tried, as he died before the case formally got underway, Dr Shah must be presumed innocent because, he was never found guilty of drunken driving, and this gives us the opportunity to ask how is the charge of drunken driving determined.