President of San Fernando Chamber of Commerce Kiran Singh is in support of the joint duty of the TT Defence Force and the TT Police. However he described the initiative as being long overdue.
Singh said the move will signal to criminals that “enough is enough.”
He noted that crime for business, adding: “It gets shoppers too psychologically afraid to be on the streets to purchase various good and services. It is a vicious path that we follow when criminals are allowed to basically roam…the road freely, without being met by any deadly force”.
Singh believes “more of the army should be brought onto the streets, especially as we get into the busy Divali, Christmas and Carnival seasons—that is when the criminal element gets even worse… and it rears its ugly head to harm law-abiding citizens with all the home invasions and robberies. It’s just an escalating state of unfortunate circumstances that we have in the country.”
Singh suggested that the joint initiative should continue until crime is under control, saying criminals should be met with equal force to demonstrate to the criminals that they are not in charge. “The number of criminals that commit crime are few in number when we look at the amount of people that live in this country, and even when you look at the strength of the Police Force and the Defence Force, they are far higher in number than the number of persons that actually commit the crime,” he said.