Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Kei­th Scot­land is call­ing on vic­tims of ex­tor­tion to come for­ward and make a re­port to the po­lice.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on Tues­day, Scot­land said the TTPS’ An­ti-Ex­tor­tion unit was ready and wait­ing, but it was up to the vic­tims to seek out as­sis­tance.

“They can­not be ef­fec­tive if the peo­ple do not make the re­ports; that’s the on­ly way they can be ef­fec­tive,” he said.

Scot­land said South and Cen­tral were the two ar­eas with the high­est lev­el of re­port­ed ex­tor­tion. He said he was not rest­ing and was deal­ing with na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sues around the clock.

He said, “We are very much aware of the con­cerns of the pop­u­la­tion, and if the crim­i­nals are not sleep­ing, we are not sleep­ing; we are work­ing.”

Scot­land said he and Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds had plans to deal with crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty for the up­com­ing Christ­mas sea­son. He al­so said joint po­lice/army pa­trols would con­tin­ue.

Bal­dath Ma­haraj, the pres­i­dent of the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (CCIC), said with the in­ter­ven­tion of Min­is­ter Scot­land and the es­tab­lish­ment of the an­ti-ex­tor­tion unit, there has been sig­nif­i­cant progress in ad­dress­ing the is­sue of ex­tor­tion in Ch­agua­nas. Ma­haraj said since these mea­sures were im­ple­ment­ed, there have not been re­cent re­ports of ex­tor­tion tar­get­ing mem­bers of the CCIC.

He said, “This marks a pos­i­tive step to­ward restor­ing con­fi­dence and se­cu­ri­ty with­in the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty. How­ev­er, the CCIC re­mains cau­tious and em­pha­sis­es the im­por­tance of sus­tained vig­i­lance. While the ab­sence of re­cent re­ports is en­cour­ag­ing, the cham­ber can­not say with cer­tain­ty that the is­sue has been en­tire­ly erad­i­cat­ed. Crim­i­nal el­e­ments still ex­ist, and it is vi­tal to main­tain a proac­tive ap­proach to en­sure this down­ward trend con­tin­ues.”

Ma­haraj said the CCIC strong­ly urges law en­force­ment and gov­ern­ment stake­hold­ers to keep build­ing on this mo­men­tum. He said the es­tab­lish­ment of the an­ti-ex­tor­tion unit, cou­pled with in­creased pa­trols and en­gage­ment with the com­mu­ni­ty, has laid a sol­id foun­da­tion.

How­ev­er, he point­ed out that on­go­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion and reg­u­lar up­dates will be es­sen­tial to en­sur­ing that the safe­ty of busi­ness­es and res­i­dents is not com­pro­mised.

He said, “The cham­ber al­so calls on its mem­bers to re­main alert and to re­port any sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ties to the au­thor­i­ties. By work­ing to­geth­er and main­tain­ing a ro­bust sys­tem of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, the com­mu­ni­ty can help to pre­vent any resur­gence of crim­i­nal be­hav­iour, en­sur­ing a safer Ch­agua­nas for every­one.”

The An­ti-Ex­tor­tion Unit, head­ed by ACP Smith, deals with ex­tor­tion across T&T. The unit con­sists of 12 po­lice of­fi­cers, in­clud­ing a spe­cial­ist an­a­lyst.