Stabroek News
May 14, 2001

Police and army patrols have found no trace of any gang in the East Coast Demerara backlands as investigations into the gruesome triple murder two Sundays ago continue.

A top police official told Stabroek News that the security forces had swept the area following reports of strange persons having been seen in the backlands.

According to the official, it was reported that a group of persons had been seen on the Enterprise backdam, at about 4:00 am on the day that the bodies of Bemchand Barran, his son Mervyn, and Dhanpaul Jagdeo had been found. Another report, the official said, was that another group was seen aback of Buxton.

The official, commenting on the investigation into the three murders, said that a shell casing found at the scene had been examined but he was not in a position to say what were the results. He also could not say what the results of the post-mortem examinations conducted on the bodies were, but confirmed that they had been received.

Home Affairs Minister, Ronald Gajraj, told Stabroek News on Saturday that while he was aware that the police had received the post-mortem report, he was yet to receive a formal report.

Gajraj said that he was giving the police space to do their work as he did not want the quality of the investigation to be sacrificed on the altar of speed.

Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon, had told reporters on Friday that the time was too short to expect spectacular results on the numerous violent crimes committed in the six-week or so span since the elections.

The investigation into the Enterprise murders is being conducted by a team of investigators from the CID headquarters at Eve Leary and Gajraj said that whatever information they received would be passed to the relevant sections of the police, when asked if they were pursuing the theory of an armed gang operating in the area.

He also refused to attach any significance, at this time, to the questioning of persons said to be members of the policing group in the Enterprise area. Gajraj said that the police had spoken to a number of persons who "saw certain things" but he said that he was unaware of what specific information had been garnered.

Gajraj expressed serious concern about the rumours, which were rife in the area and the tension generated by them, citing the rumours of persons moving to burn the Enterprise Primary School and of two children being poisoned after drinking tap water. These rumours over the past two weeks generated a lot of tension and confusion. He has appealed to the media not to give currency to these rumours without making an attempt to verify their authenticity.

Like Dr Luncheon, Gajraj also believes that criminals were taking advantage of the situation on the East Coast Demerara. On Friday at a press conference Dr Luncheon attributed the blame for the volatile situation on the East Coast Demerara to the work of opportunists and criminals. About the apparent increase in armed crime, Gajraj conceded that there were some illegal weapons in circulation and that some of them were in the hands of criminal elements. Also, he said that the possession of arms legal or illegal was not confined to one section of the society, as some sections of the media have been reporting.

He disclosed that based on the conversations he had with the residents in the Enterprise/Bachelor's Adventure area and the type of shots fired at Bare Root residents, at the PNC REFORM headquarters and at the police at Buxton, the guns were similar and suggested automatic weapons were used. On the other hand, he said that the weapons apparently used to shoot at the residents of Enterprise appeared to be machine guns. But Gajraj observed that in the absence of hard evidence this was only conjecture on his part, which could only be verified by obtaining concrete evidence.

Gajraj noted too that the increased presence of the security forces on the east coast had caused some of the criminals to move to other areas. He said that the police were aware of this and were acting accordingly.

Gajraj also offered the opinion that the attacks had been concentrated on the social sector areas, which, in its campaign, the PPP/Civic said had seen much improvement.

He said that the roads have been damaged by the burning of tyres and the digging of ditches, schools had been damaged as well as water mains. But he said that the attacks caused hardship to all; no section of the community escaped the consequences of the vandalism being perpetrated. By the same token, he cautioned against the adoption of criminal elements by communities or politicians, saying that there was no safe haven from the consequences of criminal activity.