Family home demolished

The demolition crew destroyed the roof, windows, doors, flooring and stairs of the house even while the owner was at the Hall of Justice in Port-of-Spain seeking an injunction to prevent the demolition.

As a result, a Carapichaima family was left homeless following the demolition which stemmed from a land dispute that turned ugly. Harrypersad Angad Lutchman, 63, and his five children were forced to spend the night with relatives at Orange Field Road as a result of the incident.

The destruction of Angad-Lutchman’s six-bedroom wooden house occurred at 8 am yesterday, even while he was at the Hall of Justice in Port-of-Spain, trying desperately to obtain an injunction and prevent the demolition.

Yesterday, Angad Lutchman and his children claimed 30 men, supervised by two policemen from the Chaguanas Police Station, arrived at 9 pm on Monday. They stormed the two-storey house and ordered the family out.

Yesterday, accompanied by his attorney Yaseen Ahmed, Angad-Lutchman went to the Hall of Justice at 8 am to take out an injunction. However, his children: Sadhna, 17; Bishma, 24; Tosha, 20 and Amit, 16 were at a neighbour’s house when the men returned. Tara, 22, was with her father at the Hall of Justice.

“I saw men with pigfoot and sledge hammers smashing the roof of our home. The men then kicked down the front door and began taking all our belongings and pelting them outside. They even destroyed several of our murtis (statues of Hindu deities),” Sadhna said.

Sadhna added that she and her brother Bishma ran home and started begging the demolition crew to stop. “They shouted at me, telling me not to enter the house. I just looked on as they wreaked havoc,” she told Newsday.

Calls to the Freeport Police Station for help, she added, were futile. When the men left, Sadhna, Bishma, Amit and Tosha stood in the road and waited for their father and Tara to arrive. The family walked into the house to see the entire roof destroyed, windows smashed, gaping holes in the flooring and the steps were also broken. The family’s beds, clothing, books, furniture and appliances were strewn about.

Lutchman said the demolition crew left behind over $400,000 in losses. Ahmed yesterday told Newsday it was the worst case of injustice he had witnessed. He said an ex-parte injunction had been granted to Angad Lutchman by Justice Carlton Best in the Hall of Justice yesterday morning against two people.

The attorney said the Attorney General was also named as a third party in the proceedings as a result of the action of the police.