St Augustine, Tunapuna residents fear lockdowns could hurt communities

Neisha Ramkissoon, who spent six months in de­ten­tion with­out be­ing charged dur­ing last year’s State of Emer­gency (SoE), is con­cerned that the new Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions leg­is­la­tion could cre­ate an­oth­er av­enue for peo­ple to be held with­out charge.

The act al­lows po­lice to ar­rest and de­tain in­di­vid­u­als in a de­clared closed area if the head of spe­cial op­er­a­tions has rea­son­able grounds to sus­pect they have com­mit­ted, are com­mit­ting, or are about to com­mit an of­fence. A mag­is­trate may then or­der the per­son’s con­tin­ued de­ten­tion for up to 48 hours if sat­is­fied that do­ing so is in the in­ter­ests of jus­tice. The leg­is­la­tion al­so al­lows a High Court judge to au­tho­rise fur­ther de­ten­tion with­out charges be­ing laid if con­tin­ued de­ten­tion is deemed nec­es­sary.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia out­side her fam­i­ly’s home, Ramkissoon, who was iden­ti­fied as the love in­ter­est of an al­leged gang­ster un­der the SoE and as some­one with “op­er­a­tional con­trol and lead­er­ship of an or­gan­ised crim­i­nal group,” said it makes no sense for her com­mu­ni­ty to pos­si­bly be sub­ject­ed to a po­lice lock­down.