Grande pensioner seeks PCA help after police inaction

A SANGRE GRANDE pensioner has reached a dead end in trying to get police protection from a close male relative who he says has assaulted him and made repeated death threats to him.

Ramesh Hazare, 66, has been trying for over a year to get police to charge the man.

Now he has sought help from the

(PCA), but the PCA, an independent civilian oversight body, was not able to offer Hazare the protection he requested.

Last Friday, Hazare went to the PCA to complain that he had made four reports to the Sangre Grande Police Station about incidents of abuse over the past year, with no redress.

He told the PCA he had also filed a complaint last month to the Police Complaints Division (PCD), because he was unsatisfied by the police handling of the matter, and that threats to him persist. He says the PCD is yet to contact him.

Hazare asked Newsday to name the relative, as he felt it would further protect him, but it remains unclear whether the man has ever been charged with the alleged offences.

An officer at the Sangre Grande Police Station told Newsday he believes Hazare's relative was charged by police at least once, although he could not recall the particular charge.

Hazare said he visited the PCD last month hoping to have the police held responsible for allegedly failing to carry out their duties, but also, more urgently, for immediate protection against his alleged assailant.

He signed a PCD form, which he showed Newsday, saying the officers who took his complaints have done nothing to bring him relief, and he fears for his safety.

In the form, Hazare writes, "To date nothing has been done to give me justice. I am afraid to enter my own home. I am living in my vehicle and I'm fearful for my life. (Accused identified) caused bodily harm to me and is (sic) not arrested even though a medical was completed to prove the extent of my injuries."

When he visited the PCD for a follow-up recently, he said he was told other people were waiting for their matters to be seen about first. He said the PCD offered no further explanation for the delay in an update.

Newsday made calls for over a week to the division's listed phone number, but repeatedly got a busy tone.

Newsday and Hazare subsequently called the Police Complaints Authority on Friday. The PCA said he could visit its office, which he did, but again to no avail.

Newsday reported earlier this month that Hazare first told Sangre Grande police a year ago that the close male relative,
against whom he later obtained a protection order, began to threaten him for his house and land on Ramoutar Street Extension, Sangre Grande.

He reported that the threats increased and almost turned deadly in November, when the man allegedly set fire to his bed while he was asleep. Hazare said he was also threatened with a licensed pellet gun on one occasion last year.

When he visited Newsday again on Friday, he said he still cannot sleep at home, as the relative continues to walk the streets, taunting and threatening him whenever he goes back to his house.

He gave Newsday copies of four receipts from the Sangre Grande Police Station, along with the PCD complaint, which was stamped and signed by a complaints officer.

He also showed Newsday a medical report he got after the last alleged assault on November 2, and a copy of an interim protection order, dated November 10. He said the police had told him to get a medical report to further his case, which he did, but to no avail.

In the protection order, the court instructed that effective immediately, the respondent must not engage in or threaten to engage in any act of domestic violence towards the applicant, including verbal abuse and physical abuse.

Neither the form filed with the PCD nor the protection order has stopped the threats, Hazare says.

He also said there was nothing to indicate the man has been held or charged by the police for allegedly continuing to breach the protection order.