Category Archives: Violence

Schoolgirl, 14, hacked to death

PH’ driver drinks poison

By Radhica Sookraj
Wednesday, March 18 2009

Domestic ViolenceFor 27 years, Churaman Ramsaroop showed no signs of being a violent person. But on Monday afternoon, Ramsaroop chopped 14-year-old Zoreen Ansara Mohammed to death, after tying her up with shoe laces, slicing her with a knife and bludgeoning her with a blunt object on the head.
He then committed suicide.

The murder/suicide took place off Bancroft Trace, Freeport, on a deserted track about four miles from Ramsaroop’s home in Arena Village. Late yesterday, both Ramsaroop’s and Mohammed’s relatives were trying to find out what had caused the murder/suicide.
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Descent into animalism

By Raffique Shah
December 21, 2008

Trini PeopleIt has been that kind of year. It was unpredictable at the beginning, became tumultuous as it regressed (well, I can’t quite say “progressed”), and as it comes to an end it leaves one wondering: would I live to see anything like this again? If you are a humanist, a caring person, you also wonder if your children or grandchildren would experience anything worse than you have in 2008.
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I don’t like to be hit. What about you?

By Verna St. Rose Greaves
August 11, 2008

Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

ViolenceToo many of us as adults believe that the only way we can deal with indiscipline in our children, is to literally beat it out of them. Religious references support our nostalgic recollections of being beaten to demonstrate it’s effectiveness, because after all look how good we turned out.

Stories are told of kneeling on graters holding up two big stones in the hot sun. Or of being ordered to cut the tamarind whip with which you were to be flogged. In the extreme the offending tool of choice a stout leather strap or the urine soaked and stretched penis of a bull; its’ impact so far removed from its’ original intent.
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When greed leads to grief

By Raffique Shah
Sunday, July 27th 2008

ViolenceTHE dovetailing of two incidents last week laid bare reasons why, in spite of its immense potential, this country seems to be destined for self-destruction. First, there was the execution of a reputed gang leader, Mervyn “Kojo” Allamby, in Aranjuez. Note I did not use the generic name Cudjoe, an Anglicised version of the African name that even those who bear it are unaware of. It’s a bastardisation similar to Cuffie or Cuffy, the African root being “Kofi”, and among Indians, “Maha-beer”, a European version of “Maha-bir”.
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Another Central toddler murdered

Three-year-old Roshni RamdialPolice were on a manhunt in Central Trinidad last night, after another toddler was murdered.

Three-year-old Roshni Ramdial, was pronounced dead on arrival at Chaguanas Health Centre. The child was beaten.

Roshni’s death followed the deaths of several other children who were attacked and killed during the past few months.

It was only last Wednesday, in Mayaro, that nine-month-old Rakeem Ricardo Clarke was clobbered to death with a dabla—thick wooden paddle used to flip roti.

A man and a woman were, up to late yesterday, assisting police in that investigation, pending an autopsy today.
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Richplain lockdown illegal

By Sean Douglas and Andre Bagoo
Wednesday, June 25 2008

ArmyTHE Law Association yesterday questioned the legality of the “lock down” of Richplain by the Defence Force who set up camp in the Diego Martin community after the Father’s Day murder of Corporal Ancil Wallace and his best friend Noel Charles.

Soldiers pitched a camp at a savannah at Angies Field Road in Richplain, two days after Cpl Wallace and Charles were killed during the christening party for Wallace’s son Jaydon on June 15. There have since been reports by residents of beatings by the soldiers and the detention of several persons in the absence of the police.
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Teachers on corporal punishment

Ria Taitt Political Editor
Sunday, June 22nd 2008

School ChildrenTeachers feel “disempowered” and “abandoned” on the issue of corporal punishment and classroom control as students mock them saying “Government say yuh cyar do me nothing”.

Eighty three per cent of teachers agree that corporal punishment should be allowed in secondary schools. And, according to 62 per cent of teachers, sexual deviance-pornography, sexual intercourse, sexual fondling and kissing- on the school premises are “big problems”.
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Army can clean up the country

By Raffique Shah
June 22, 2008

ArmyThe telephone call came earlier than reveille-for-an-old-soldier, but it was not unexpected. At the other end of the line, “College”, having apologised for blowing the telecom bugle a trifle too soon, said to me: “Raf, you must write something about these little punks who feel they can shoot soldiers just so! That would never have happened in our day. We took care of our own, even if it meant bending the law!” To cut a short conversation even shorter, “College”, as the one-time private soldier was fondly known, felt that Corporal Ancil Wallace’s colleagues should have acted with dispatch to deal with the toy-criminals who brazenly shot to death the soldier and his close friend.
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