Police are investigating a report that Local Government Councillor Ramchand Rajbal Maraj was robbed at gunpoint on Thursday morning.

Rajbal Maraj, Councillor for Carli Bay/California, was targeted at his home at Rowan Street, Balmain Couva around 9:30.

The UNC Councillor, who also is a Justice of the Peace, said the perpetrator had come to see him in this capacity, claiming to be interested in getting a WASA certificate stamped.

Rajbal Maraj said the man then pulled gun on him, ordering him go to the back of the house.

While there, the local government official’s hands were bound and a cloth stuffed in his mouth. at the back he bound my hands and put a cloth in my mouth.

The incident has been condemned by Rudranath Indarsingh, Member of Parliament for Couva South.

“Daily, residents are held hostage in their homes and their lives and livelihoods threatened by gun wielding bandits, who the Prime Minister, as Head of the National Security Council has failed to get off the streets and deal with,” Indarsingh said. 

He added: “The latest robbery against Councillor Maraj is characteristic of the criminal enterprise that now flourishes in Couva through the length and breadth of Trinidad under this Keith Rowley-led administration.”

Police have launched an investigation into the incident. 

While Prime Minister Rowley and National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds play
games with each other, bandits are running wild in areas of the country which were
once considered safe, harming innocent, honest people.