Noise pol­lu­tion, school vi­o­lence, drug abuse and il­le­gal squat­ting were among the long list of griev­ances raised by res­i­dents at a po­lice town meet­ing host­ed by the San­gre Grande Po­lice Sta­tion at Swa­ha Hin­du Col­lege on Cu­napo South­ern Main Road on Thurs­day evening.

Se­nior cit­i­zens com­plained that the play­ing of loud mu­sic was hav­ing a se­vere im­pact on their health, while oth­ers ac­cused po­lice of ig­nor­ing their re­ports or even pro­tect­ing those re­spon­si­ble. Res­i­dents al­so raised con­cerns about a lack of mo­bile and foot pa­trols, il­le­gal vend­ing, bul­ly­ing in schools, PH dri­vers trans­port­ing chil­dren, fights on the streets, drug use among stu­dents, and the gen­er­al safe­ty of their com­mu­ni­ties.

One res­i­dent, Mrs Khan, said the noise has robbed her of peace in re­tire­ment. “The mu­sic vi­brates my home caus­ing me not to have some peace and en­joy my re­tire­ment. I sel­dom sleep as the mu­sic will blast as ear­ly as 6 am and late as mid­night,” she told of­fi­cers. She added that those re­spon­si­ble boast­ed they con­trolled the po­lice, and said a fe­male of­fi­cer was rude and dis­mis­sive when she tried to com­plain. Khan sug­gest­ed that the se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent set aside days to meet the pub­lic, to which Snr Supt Christo­pher Pa­ponette re­spond­ed that while he was “not a politi­cian,” res­i­dents could vis­it his of­fice with­out an ap­point­ment.