Students, teachers locked down in school

Teachers and students of Temple Street Hindu School, Arima, yesterday morning locked themselves inside the school after dozens of gun shots echoed in the area.

It was later discovered that a man and his wife had been shot. The man died at the scene while the wife remained in critical condition.

The school is located at the corner of the Eastern Main Road and Temple Street, which is known for its high crime rate and for being a drug den, which was allegedly infamously run by the late Lily Lane.

An official at the Education Ministry said the teachers followed standard protocol by locking themselves and the students in until they liaised with the police. The police advised the teachers to dismiss school early and to contact the children’s parents for them to be picked up.

General Secretary of the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha (SDMS) Satnarayan Maharaj said he received news of the shooting as soon as it happened from the principal Roma Tota-Maharaj.

He said the school had been in the small, limited location since 1952, and was the first school opened by the SDMS. The school housed about 200 students.

For years parents and teachers had been asking that the school be relocated to a safer location. There were plans to build a new school that would house 600 students, but that plan never came to fruition, even though the SDMS had sourced the land.

Maharaj said, “We bought one acre of free hold land on Tumpuna Road, Arima, for $3 million. Land in that area is very expensive. They told us get land and they will build the school. We started to build the school under the People’s Partnership, but when the administration changed, construction stopped. Although Anthony Garcia (Education Minister) is living not too far from there, nothing has been done to finish the school. Right now the place is fenced around with galvanise. Ask him when he will finish the school.”

He added the property was often overgrown with bushes.

“Once in a while I have to ask our man of business in Arima, businessman Raj Jadoo, to get the grass cut for me. There is a lot of shooting and you know that is a hot area for drugs. This is very dangerous because if you have a drug war going on right now a stray bullet could lick up one of the children. Also, when they are in that environment they could gravitate towards guns and drugs. The environment will draw them to that.”

When contacted yesterday, Garcia immediately hedged the question about the incident and the completion of the school.

“Those are two different things you are talking about. I have to be careful, you might want to link that to the school not being completed and then blame the ministry for not moving those children. This is exactly what is going to happen. There was an incident in the school today and I am investigating that now. The fact that the school was being constructed at another time is totally different and I don’t want to link that.”

Asked again about completion of the school, he said: “I don’t have information on that, so I can’t talk about that now.”