Reports said that at around 13:30 hrs yesterday, the exercise, aided by the Army helicopter saw the arrest of five men and the seizure of a motor car in the vicinity of Turkeyen, East Coast Demerara.

The Chronicle understands that a quantity of ammunition was also found in the area

The operation focused in the area following reports that heavily-armed bandits who had kidnapped businessman and racing car driver Kamal Seebarran, who is now safe, may have been holding out there after their escape.

Meanwhile, Cabinet at its weekly meeting on Tuesday spent a "very long time" reviewing in its entirety the current crime situation that has taken the country by storm, Head of the Presidential Secretariat and Cabinet Secretary, Dr. Roger Luncheon said yesterday.

He said Cabinet recognised that the "situation was becoming even more complicated".

Cabinet was also advised that on one hand the Joint Services are continuing their operations mainly on the East Coast Demerara and in Georgetown and those operations have been upgraded with the introduction of the cordon-and-search exercises, he said.

He added that on the other hand, it was noted that the criminals continued to operate with impunity with a marked increase in the otherwise petty crimes and then alarmingly, the "onset of kidnapping which is a new feature of what has become part of the repertoire of the criminals".

Luncheon said Cabinet was advised that the cordon-and-search reflected a move from the customary defences, crime preventative and to some extent reassurance-providing mode of the earlier operations to a now more aggressive stance or mode of operations.

He told reporters at his regular post-Cabinet news conference at the Office of the President that this update to Cabinet was provided by Home Affairs Minister, Mr. Ronald Gajraj, while Cabinet members made their own contributions.

Luncheon also said that the linkages between the crime wave and politics were again highlighted and Cabinet was "not unmindful of the moral support to the crimes and the criminals and the sieged village of Buxton which is being provided" by the leader of the Opposition People's National Congress Reform (PNC/R), Mr. Desmond Hoyte.

He said Hoyte continued his forage into that East Coast Demerara community, making representation on behalf of those arrested during the most recent cordon-and-search operation conducted in the area by the Police and Army.

"Cabinet felt that those acts could only be interpreted as offering open support to those elements and keeping to Mr. Hoyte's longstanding, public undertaking to make Guyana ungovernable," Luncheon asserted.

He said Cabinet also noticed the increasing concerns by the business community as, apart from the PPP/Civic administration and its law enforcement arm, it is precisely the business community that is being targeted by the criminal elements.

Luncheon was also asked by reporters whether Cabinet, in its lengthy discussions on the crime situation Tuesday, considered the possibility of a declaration of a state of emergency.

"There was a discussion on the legislative and in this sense the possibility or the access to proclamations. Cabinet examined this issue - the state of emergency (for) Georgetown, the whole of Guyana and isolated regions in its entirety and it was felt that at this time, the achievements of the state of emergency could be and are being provided in the context of the increased Army and Police operations and activities", he said.

"In a sense, what is being done and the maximum utilisation of the Army, the Police and the law enforcement agencies was not likely at this time to be enhanced by the declaration or the proclamation of a state of emergency," he said.

He added: "The mobilisation of the Army and the Police in the context of a proclamation of a state of emergency would not increase or would not enhance the effect (since) we have mobilised the Police and Army to the fullest extent."

"Now I know you do not believe that a miracle would occur because a state of emergency has been declared. A state of emergency at the bottom line calls for enforcement (and) I don't want to believe that at a time like this when ordinary laws are being flouted, that a state of emergency - another law, proclamation this time - would receive different attention from criminals," Luncheon argued.