Families removed from Petrotrin bungalows again

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Hours after “evicted” occupants moved back into the former Petrotrin bungalows at Clifton Hill, Point Fortin, they were again forced out by police and soldiers.

Over 20 families, including babies and young children, were thrown out of the bungalows by police on Wednesday, but they moved back into the premises on Thursday.

By Thursday night, police returned to the community, forcing the families out of the buildings and the drama continued into yesterday morning.

No one from any of the four companies that replaced Petrotrin or the Government has issued a response to this situation.

Some of the displaced, including Venezuelans, were paying a $2,000 rent to the Morvant Construction Building Company, while others were acting as caretakers for the properties.

The private company is claiming ownership of the land.

A 26-year-old man, who spoke with Guardian Media on the condition of anonymity, said the police, who were heavily armed and wearing ski-masks, came to the community around 10 pm on Thursday and were threatening to arrest people if they did not leave the premises.

He said one of the officers claimed that they were acting under the orders of Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley. He said the officer grabbed his cellphone and deleted his videos depicting the eviction.

Franklin Daniel, who suffered a 70 per cent disability due to injuries from a vehicular accident, said the police threatened to kill them if they moved back into the premises.

Daniel, a caretaker of the premises he lived in, said he had been staying there for the past two years and also operates a phone repair business. Lamenting that law enforcement officers broke his doors and cupboards, he also claimed that his money, jewellery, power washer and other items were stolen during the eviction.

Aaron Arnasalam, who claimed he was a representative of the construction company, said the police acted unlawfully.

“They not respecting no form of legal documents. They have no respect for that. It seems as though we illegal but we presenting (documents) exactly what is needed for us to be here, but they don’t care about that.”

Arnasalam, who was also a caretaker of one of the buildings, said, “We have one location where we have to store everything. We trying to gather all the community members who were also removed and place them in a comfortable position until the time being, until this thing roll over because we already know confidently that we will be back here.”

Arnasalam said the police showed them no identification and no documents about who sanctioned the evictions. He said they got no warning or eviction notice. Police questioned an official of the construction company and released him without charges.