A SHAMEFUL ATTACK

This week’s shameful attack by young thugs on the President of the Inter-Religious Organisation (IRO), Rev Cyril Paul, in which the IRO Head was beaten and robbed of his car at gunpoint, is a signal that despite the findings of a Government-funded survey no one in this country can within reason consider himself safe. In the process, Rev Paul became the third high profile person within recent months, including a former President of Trinidad and Tobago, Sir Ellis Clarke, to have been reportedly robbed. The third was Dr Wahid Ali, a former President of the Senate. The jury is still out on whether another former President, Mr Arthur Napoleon Robinson, whose security officer was shot and killed while Mr Robinson was having dinner, had not been targetted for robbery.

When well-known individuals are the victims there is always considerable publicity, moreso than when ordinary people are attacked, but whether high profile or ordinary citizen, we must be concerned. What is particularly disturbing is that because of the IRO President’s high visibility, the thugs must have known who he was. And this in much the same way that those who allegedly attacked Dr Ali, and the individual who pleaded guilty with respect to the incident in which Sir Ellis was robbed of his vehicle, may very well have known who they both were. The young men who assaulted Rev Paul and stole his car at the point of a gun behaved in a cowardly manner. They must have realised that because of Rev Paul’s age and calling, plus the added disincentive of being robbed at gunpoint he was not likely to employ force to restrain them. Yet they pummelled and kicked him.

While we appreciate that it is impossible, for the Police to be at every place where a crime is about to be committed, nonetheless, surely there are measures that can be put in place that are likely to deter bandits from operating almost at will. In addition, there must be greater cooperation from the general public. It is clear that in several instances positive action by alert citizens could have averted serious crimes. And even if the crimes were not prevented then descriptions of the bandits would have led to early arrests. How was it possible for three strange young men to have been loitering on Sellier Street in Curepe on Monday evening without their suspicious behaviour not attracting the attention of residents or passers-by?

They must have been there for some time and were hardly likely to have happened to have been in the area by chance at the time that the IRO Head drove through. Or is it that none of those who may have noticed something odd about three strange young men in the area could have been bothered about it enough to have called the Police? Are we now so afraid? Was there not the chance that Rev Paul could have been saved all this indignity and hurt if others had been more concerned? Would former President Robinson’s bodyguard have been alive today if even one concerned citizen had acted? But even as we pose the questions we want to record our disgust at what happened to Rev Paul on Monday night and to hope that the Police will be able to deal swiftly with the thugs who attacked him and stole his car.