An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Hours af­ter se­nior na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, as­sured the na­tion that threat as­sess­ments ahead of Mon­day's In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tions re­mained low, a new se­cu­ri­ty threat has emerged.

Ac­cord­ing to a broad­cast is­sued via the Po­lice Com­mand Cen­tre at 11.12 pm on Fri­day, a bul­letin was cir­cu­lat­ed to all po­lice di­vi­sions in­struct­ing of­fi­cers to "in­crease se­cu­ri­ty at all po­lice sta­tions."

A sub­se­quent com­mu­ni­ca­tion, at­trib­uted to a se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent, di­rect­ed of­fi­cers to "in­crease pa­trols to all Gov­ern­ment build­ings." The mes­sage fur­ther ref­er­enced pos­si­ble at­tacks in­volv­ing British per­son­nel, em­bassies and Gov­ern­ment build­ings, stat­ing: "Pos­si­ble Mus­lims. Mathu­ra, Care­nage, Laven­tille."

Con­tact­ed short­ly af­ter the threat alert was cir­cu­lat­ed, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (Op­er­a­tions) and Gold Com­man­der for this year's In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tions, Suzette Mar­tin, con­firmed that in­ves­ti­ga­tors were work­ing to de­ter­mine the ori­gin and cred­i­bil­i­ty of the threat.

A se­nior of­fi­cial in the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion con­firmed re­ceiv­ing the broad­cast, while of­fi­cers in the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion al­so ac­knowl­edged that the alert had been dis­sem­i­nat­ed to their units.

More than 600 po­lice of­fi­cers are sched­uled to be de­ployed on Mon­day as part of the se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments for this year's In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tions.