Ramesar takes over as ACP in Tobago amid crime concerns

Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­[email protected]

To­ba­go will have a new po­lice com­man­der from Mon­day, just days af­ter the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) re­vealed the is­land is the on­ly po­lice di­vi­sion record­ing an in­crease in Se­ri­ous Re­port­ed Crime this year.

As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Anand Rame­sar con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that he was ap­point­ed on Wednes­day to over­see polic­ing in To­ba­go. He is ex­pect­ed to take up du­ties less than six weeks be­fore To­ba­go Car­ni­val, which runs from Oc­to­ber 30 to No­vem­ber 1.

Rame­sar said the first pri­or­i­ty will be en­gage­ment.

“My first item on the agen­da is to se­cure en­gage­ment with the key stake­hold­ers on the is­land,” he said.

“From there, I will de­ter­mine how best to align what is hap­pen­ing in To­ba­go with the strate­gic plans of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.”

He plans to meet Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine, se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers, mem­bers of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and oth­er stake­hold­ers be­fore de­cid­ing on any ma­jor changes.

“I know there are is­sues that may not have been ad­dressed as the com­mu­ni­ty de­sires, and I want to en­sure my in­put is felt in a pos­i­tive way and that I can bring val­ue where it is need­ed,” he said.

Among the ar­eas he has al­ready iden­ti­fied for at­ten­tion are com­mu­ni­ty re­la­tions and gang ac­tiv­i­ty. How­ev­er, Rame­sar stressed that he would not ar­rive with a pre­de­ter­mined agen­da.

“I’m not go­ing to push any­thing down the throat of those in To­ba­go,” he said, not­ing that com­mu­ni­ty part­ner­ships would be crit­i­cal to both polic­ing and in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing.

His ap­point­ment comes as po­lice grap­ple with a ris­ing mur­der toll on the is­land and a one per cent in­crease in Se­ri­ous Re­port­ed Crimes be­tween Jan­u­ary 1 and this week.

Speak­ing at a TTPS me­dia brief­ing on Thurs­day, ACP Rishi Singh, who has re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the To­ba­go and East­ern di­vi­sions, said To­ba­go was the on­ly polic­ing di­vi­sion in the coun­try to record an in­crease in Se­ri­ous Re­port­ed Crimes dur­ing the pe­ri­od, al­though de­tec­tion rates were al­so im­prov­ing.

Yes­ter­day, Rame­sar said re­duc­ing mur­ders will be among his key pri­or­i­ties.

Re­ject­ing the no­tion that killings are in­evitable, Rame­sar said, “We have to re­duce it. We have to stop it.”

He in­tends to meet se­nior of­fi­cers and mid­dle man­agers to re­view de­ploy­ment strate­gies across the is­land, with in­creased po­lice vis­i­bil­i­ty and tar­get­ed pa­trols ex­pect­ed to fea­ture promi­nent­ly.

“Po­lice vis­i­bil­i­ty is go­ing to be a key el­e­ment for me. Tar­get­ed pa­trols are go­ing to be a key item for me,” he said.

Rame­sar al­so plans to au­dit ex­ist­ing op­er­a­tions to de­ter­mine whether they are pro­duc­ing mean­ing­ful re­sults.

The as­sign­ment comes at a chal­leng­ing time for To­ba­go. Ear­li­er this week, Singh said crime on the is­land was in­creas­ing­ly dri­ven by young peo­ple and linked to broad­er so­cial is­sues. He al­so con­firmed a rise in mur­ders and Se­ri­ous Re­port­ed Crimes.

Mean­while, po­lice are mov­ing to es­tab­lish mi­cro po­lice units at Good­wood and Ply­mouth.

Rame­sar will have lim­it­ed time to set­tle in­to the role be­fore To­ba­go Car­ni­val, one of the is­land’s largest an­nu­al events.

Al­though still re­view­ing the sit­u­a­tion, he said plan­ning for the fes­ti­val is al­ready on his agen­da.

“I was on­ly ap­point­ed on Wednes­day. Yes­ter­day was a hol­i­day, so these are things I am still think­ing through and putting on pa­per,” he said.

His first step will be to as­sess ex­ist­ing se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments and con­sult those in­volved in plan­ning.

“I look to en­sur­ing that To­ba­go re­mains a very safe place for peo­ple to en­joy Car­ni­val,” he said, adding that any gaps iden­ti­fied would be ad­dressed.

“My in­ten­tion is al­ways to do things bet­ter. There’s al­ways room for im­prove­ment.”

The post­ing marks a re­turn to fa­mil­iar ground for Rame­sar, who pre­vi­ous­ly served as Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent in charge of the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion.

A po­lice of­fi­cer for more than two decades, Rame­sar holds a mas­ter’s de­gree in Crim­i­nol­o­gy and Crim­i­nal Jus­tice. He has al­so been a promi­nent fig­ure in po­lice rep­re­sen­ta­tion, serv­ing three con­sec­u­tive terms in the lead­er­ship of the Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion be­tween 2010 and 2019. In 2018, he was ap­point­ed pres­i­dent of the Caribbean Fed­er­a­tion of Po­lice Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tions.

He was pro­mot­ed to ACP on Sep­tem­ber 12, 2024, as part of a group of eight of­fi­cers el­e­vat­ed to the rank.