Minister Panday: Attack criminals with full forceBy AZARD ALI and CECILY ASSON Sunday, February 13 20
http://www.newsday.co.tt/news/0,135693.htmlTHE group of villagers who attacked two bandits in Penal, one of whom died, has gotten moral support from a Government minister who yesterday called for a change to the law of self-defence to allow citizens to attack bandits “with full force”.
Subhas Panday who is Minister in the Ministry of National Security, told Sunday Newsday yesterday that with 56 murders in 42 days, bandits are holding the country to ransom. And the 1967 British law, he said, is irrelevant to a criminal-infested society such as Trinidad and Tobago.
Panday was yesterday expected to visit Roger Hosein, 24, and wife Nisha Alexander, 28, at the San Fernando General Hospital, who were victims of Thursday’s bloody attack by two cutlass-weilding bandits at their home in Old Clarke Road, Penal. They were chopped and cash was stolen from them. But a group of villagers reacted on hearing the victims screaming in their home and as the two men were leaving with the cash and Hosein’s keys to his car, they pounced on them.
A villager got into his car and ran the vehicle into them. According to a police report, the two bandits fell on the road. One of them, Kenton Contara, 28, of Freeport, was found dead and the other man who sustained injuries, was tied up and handed over to police officers who arrived on the scene.
The villager was arrested by police and up to yesterday was detained at the Barrackpore Police Station. Panday told Sunday Newsday that he had also intended to visit him at the station. A police report stated that the villager is still assisting investigators into the circumstances of how the bandit, Contara, met his death.
But Panday said, “I’m saying, that having regard to what happened when the bandits were attacked, the law should be changed. I’m saying that given our crime rate, the citizens should be given the power to attack with full force, any person who is inflicting violence on them in the commission of a crime.”
As it stands at present, the Criminal Law Act of 1967 inherited from England, states in Section 3 (1), that a person may use reasonable force in defence of his person and property. But the Minister in the Ministry of National Security minister said yesterday that the law has become irrelevant to Trinidad, and applicable to England and Canada where law enforcement responses to criminal acts of people are within the range of five to ten minutes.
“But in Trinidad, we are under siege by the bandits and people are locked down in their homes like a jail. The time has come for the citizens, like in Penal, to be given the authority in law, to attack anyone who is attacking them and their property.”
Panday said that his recommendation for citizens to attack bandits with “full force” is even more relevant, given the police delayed response to criminal incidents and the low detection crime rate.
He commented, “The incident with the villagers in Clarke Road net a 100 percent detection rate — they dealt with both criminals. But today when you telephone the police, they come the following day. Our crime detection rate is below 20 percent.”
Yesterday, Hosein’s mother-in-law Angela Ali , 48, expressed outrage over the call by Police Commissioner Dwayne Gibbs, for persons not to use excessive force on bandits caught committing crimes.
But Ali told Sunday Newsday, “Tell me in a case like this, how are we to react? The commissioner has a gun to protect himself, we have nothing so we must find a way to defend ourselves when we are under attack.” She said that the response by the villagers on Thursday was a “natural act” in having to save a family under attack. “We did the police a favour by catching the bandits. We did what the police should be doing,” Ali said.