Akash Sama­roo

Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor Renu­ka-Sagram­s­ingh Sook­lal has re­vealed that she lost a cousin to mur­der and ad­mon­ished the Op­po­si­tion for mak­ing it seem as if Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) politi­cians are im­mune to the emo­tion­al an­guish of crim­i­nal acts.

An an­gry Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal yes­ter­day told the Sen­ate that on Tues­day, Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Jear­lean John claimed the PNM did not care about the death of busi­ness­man Sachel Kunge­be­har­ry be­cause he is a res­i­dent of Cunu­pia and not con­sid­ered “elite enough” to war­rant any wor­ry. She said John then wished that the en­tire PNM could feel the pain of Kunge­be­har­ry’s moth­er.

Re­spond­ing to those state­ments, Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal said, “No re­spon­si­ble per­son po­si­tion­ing them­selves to lead a coun­try would wish that pain on any cit­i­zen of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

She said those are un­for­tu­nate words from a par­ty that wants to run the coun­try’s af­fairs.

“And why I raise this is­sue is be­cause that is the di­vi­sion, hate and anger that the UNC con­tin­ues to spew and we ask why there is vi­o­lence in Trinidad and To­ba­go? Why there is hurt, why there is suf­fer­ing and why crime has spi­ralled? Be­cause when lead­ers could stand and wish bad on oth­er peo­ple, it tells you about the lead­er­ship the oth­er side is of­fer­ing,” Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal ar­gued.

She said she knows all too well the emo­tion­al tor­ment of los­ing some­one to mur­der.

“Po­lice con­sta­ble Vi­jay Har­ri­nar­ine, who was shot down, I can say to Trinidad and To­ba­go that is my first cousin. I at­tend­ed his fu­ner­al, he was out­side, shot down and killed. Al­lan Bab­wah, a home in­va­sion not too long and killed, a client of mine for ten years. Saman­tha Isaac, we heard in the Sen­ate the Tot Lamp­kin case, a land­mark case, I taught her for five years at St Fran­cois Col­lege, best his­to­ry stu­dent,” Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal de­clared.

She con­tin­ued, “So when they come here and make it seem that we don’t un­der­stand what the man on the ground go­ing through, I can say to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, while I con­tin­ue to do my lit­tle part, is be­cause we do un­der­stand what the cit­i­zens of this coun­try are go­ing through, but what we will not do is give up.”

Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal said it was ir­re­spon­si­ble for the Op­po­si­tion to make it seem as if the Gov­ern­ment is out of touch with the rav­ages of crime and non­cha­lant­ly by­pass so­ci­ety with a po­lice es­cort.

“I have no fear to read in­to the record, be­cause con­trary to what they sell the peo­ple, we on this side, we con­tin­ue through this Ap­pro­pri­a­tion Bill to en­sure that the po­lice and pro­tec­tive ser­vices, as best as we can do, are giv­en the nec­es­sary fund­ing to en­sure we are pro­tect­ing our cit­i­zens. Yes, we are not where we want to be but be­cause we un­der­stand the pain and the suf­fer­ing of our cit­i­zens,” she con­tend­ed.

The 2025 Ap­pro­pri­a­tion Bill was lat­er passed in the Sen­ate.