UWI security beefed up after kidnapping

SECURITY has been beefed up at The University of the West Indies (UWI), St Augustine campus in response to members of staff and students trauma after a recent kidnapping incident.

Maria Dass-Supersad was kidnapped as she left her workplace at the campus on November 28. She finished work as commercialisation manager in the Office of Institutional Advancement and Internalisation. Shortly after 3 pm, she was grabbed at gunpoint by two men who have since been charged.

In another incident in mid-October, a female student was sexually assaulted, resulting in students organising a number of protests, lobbying for increased security surveillance. There have been concerns about the safety of students and staff at the campus even though there has been increased security.

Campus principal Prof Brian Copeland said to ease these concerns and give a peace of mind, there has been increased security around the campus. "We do have our incidents, but compared to outside the walls, it is quite safe. Given what has been happening, and there is escalation on the outside, we are looking to see how we could further secure our people and our property."

Copeland said, "We were assured by the police that those guys (the accused) could have infiltrated anywhere in Trinidad. It wasn't a flaw on the part of The UWI and it came from the Commissioner of Police himself, he said so publicly. It is not that it doesn't concern me. Come on, it's my staff, it's somebody I spoke to a couple weeks ago, but it certainly does not detract from the fact that it happened."

He said he is trying to see what can be done to ensure it is harder for such such events to reoccur.