Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Three days af­ter he was fa­tal­ly shot in the line of du­ty, 25-year-old po­lice con­sta­ble Kr­ish­na Ba­na­har was giv­en a hero’s send-off yes­ter­day.

Pun­dit Den­ish­war Ma­haraj said Ba­na­har died do­ing what he loved and salut­ed him and his col­leagues in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS). at the fu­ner­al ser­vice which was held un­der mil­i­tary and Hin­du rites at the house of mourn­ing, Sil­ver Stream Trace, Dehli Road, Fyz­abad.

The slain of­fi­cer’s grief-strick­en par­ents, Son­ny­lal and Ar­ril­la Ba­na­har, sat near the cas­ket through­out the ser­vice. His moth­er re­peat­ed­ly ca­ressed his face and put her arm pro­tec­tive­ly across his chest as she whis­pered her fi­nal words to the el­dest of her four chil­dren.

Pun­dit Ma­haraj ad­mit­ted that be­cause of Ba­na­har’s gen­tle na­ture, he thought he would get “chewed up” in the TTPS but he proved to be a brave, strong and ded­i­cat­ed of­fi­cer.

Salut­ing all hard­work­ing po­lice of­fi­cers, in­clud­ing Ba­na­har, he said: “You leave your homes. You leave your fam­i­lies to go out there to do your du­ty with­out fear or favour, putting your lives at risk. Your fam­i­ly do not know if you will re­turn home. But you go out there and do your du­ty to the best of your abil­i­ty to pro­tect us, to safe­guard us, to safe­guard this coun­try and our cit­i­zens.”

He ex­pressed con­cern that T&T had be­come a bar­bar­ic so­ci­ety but said he was hope­ful change would come and peo­ple would re­vert to the “old time” way of life where peo­ple looked out for each oth­er.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds, who de­liv­ered re­marks at the ser­vice, said the gov­ern­ment and peo­ple were pained over Ba­na­har’s death.

“From the time I en­tered, I saw faces all moist­ened with tears as you bear the bur­dens of this tremen­dous loss of this beau­ti­ful young man, a man who chose ser­vice, a man who chose to guard and to pro­tect and to guide as op­posed to those who took his life. They chose a path­way of crime and evil and sin­ful­ness,” he said.

“As we all know, crime is a man­i­fes­ta­tion of the very sin­ful na­ture of us hu­man be­ings. Some of those sins, we in the so­ci­ety brand as crime. Cer­tain­ly, his killing is one of them.”

Hinds said he was pleased with how the po­lice re­act­ed to Ba­na­har’s killing: “I’m told that one of the per­pe­tra­tors is now in cus­tody as­sist­ing them with the en­quiry around this dig­ni­fied and de­cent serv­ing per­son­al­i­ty’s pass­ing,”

He as­sured that the gov­ern­ment and the TTPS are deeply com­mit­ted to con­tin­u­ing the fight to pro­tect cit­i­zens from crim­i­nals.

South West­ern Di­vi­sion Supt Ed­mund Cum­ber­batch said al­though Ba­na­har had giv­en just five years of ser­vice be­fore his un­time­ly death, he showed self­less sac­ri­fice and un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to serv­ing and pro­tect­ing the com­mu­ni­ty. He added that his brav­ery and ded­i­ca­tion would for­ev­er be re­mem­bered in the com­mu­ni­ty and the TTPS.

Ag In­sp Gre­go­ry Prescott, who is in charge of the Siparia CID where Ba­na­har was last at­tached, said he had touched the hearts of every­one he en­coun­tered.

Re­call­ing that Ba­na­har en­list­ed in the TTPS in Feb­ru­ary 2020, he said: “His ea­ger­ness to learn and adapt­abil­i­ty to any giv­en sit­u­a­tion at work pro­pelled his work eth­ic above and be­yond the call of du­ty.

“With a firm, yet gen­tle and fair com­po­sure, he would go non­stop to en­sure that his in­ves­ti­ga­tions were solved and com­plet­ed, with an out­come that would re­sult in the ar­rest of sev­er­al de­fen­dants of crim­i­nal back­ground.”

Prescott added that Ba­na­har was a brave and gen­tle soul with a dri­ve to chal­lenge the crim­i­nal el­e­ments but was al­so deeply de­vot­ed to his fam­i­ly and was an avid fit­ness en­thu­si­ast.

Fol­low­ing the ser­vice, cre­ma­tion took place at the Shore of Peace, Mos­qui­to Creek.