Vandals chop up farmer’s watermelons

A FARMER and street vendor from Avocat Village in South Oropouche lost thousands of dollars worth of watermelons, on Friday, when someone vandalised his garden by chopping and leaving the fruits. Rajeev Basdeo said he went to tend to his garden off St John Branch Trace and made the distressing discovery. He visits the garden daily.

“This is an act of wickedness. So far, I only picked eight melons from the garden and I was supposed to harvest some on Monday. They chopped and burst up most of the melons. I had melon weighing about 25 and 30 pounds. Normally, I would have reached about 6 pm, but I had something to do and I reached about 7 pm in the garden,” Basdeo said.

Basdeo said for the past three-and-a-half months, he spent countless hours tending to the fruits and was looking forward to selling them. He has two varieties identified as yellow and Mayaro red.

“This is how I earn a living. I only started planting watermelons this year, but for the past six years, I am in the business. The people who did this are nasty people and need to stop it. It cost me about $30,000 to grow and care for the melons,” Basdeo said. Basdeo lives a short distance away. So far, he estimated losses at about $10,000. When Sunday Newsday visited the garden, other relatives called for stiffer penalties for perpetrators of such crimes. One relative, who asked not to be identified, said: “People cannot be spending money and time on their crops and others destroying the crops like this. This is malicious and there should be stiffer penalties. This is interfering with people’s livelihood.”

Holding a damaged melon, Basdeo’s brother Sanjeev said: “Three years ago, someone burnt down the camp in the field at about 1 am. Nothing came out of it. Some of the melons are still attached to the vines. This was very spiteful.”

Siparia police visited the garden and took photos of the damage fruits. No one has been arrested.

The family also contacted the Praedial Larceny Squad at Princes Town. Up to press time, police from this unit had not visited the scene.