Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has con­demned calls for crim­i­nal gangs to unite amid on­go­ing protests sur­round­ing the Joshua Sama­roo-Ka­ia Sealy case, de­scrib­ing sup­port for such ap­peals as “sick and evil” and pledg­ing that her Gov­ern­ment will stand firm­ly be­hind law en­force­ment and law-abid­ing cit­i­zens.

In a state­ment post­ed on X yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so showed a clip of two men, with one claim­ing there was a truce among 6, 7, 8 and 9 gangs as well as Ras­ta City and Mus­lim gangs, as they stood in Port-of-Spain af­ter a move to protest in front of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions’ of­fice was quashed by po­lice on Wednes­day. The clip of the men was im­me­di­ate­ly fol­lowed by Guardian Me­dia’s in­ter­view with ACP Richard Smith, who promised a ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach from the po­lice to gang ac­tiv­i­ty.

In her post, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused sec­tions of the Op­po­si­tion, union lead­ers, en­ter­tain­ers and ac­tivists of align­ing them­selves with dan­ger­ous rhetoric that emerged dur­ing re­cent demon­stra­tions out­side the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).