Law enforcement authorities are taking fresh notice of former coup leader leader Yasin Abu Bakr and his Jamaat al Muslimeen group.
The new security interest, however, has provoked a firestorm of criticism against the Sunday Express and this reporter by associates of No.1 Mucurapo Road, who have suggested that this newspaper has "crossed the line" by publishing a series of articles detailing the commercial relationship between the Muslimeen and the Government and the group's own involvement in criminal activity and loose alliance with criminal cells and known dangerous individuals.A radio talk show host, who has the ear of Bakr and is reputed to be the public voice of the Muslimeen, has launched a vitriolic attack against writers of this newspaper, and has attempted to polarise the issue along racial lines by repeatedly referring to the author of the pieces as "this East Indian woman." His media owners are known beneficiaries of several Muslimeen-held international conferences at their Port of Spain hotel.
A long standing member of the Jamaat al Muslimeen last week told this newspaper of a planned Muslimeen response to the Sunday Express series including more radio talk by (name called) of a certain talk show host and of a soon to be published pamphlet detailing a true account of Bakr's Muslimeen story and the 1990 coup attempt.
The Muslimeen member, one of the original 114 coup-makers who launched a bloody attack against the then NAR Government in July 1990, also told this reporter: "You are really stepping over the line."
Two independent sources, with connections to No.1 Mucurapo Road told the Sunday Express the lull in kidnappings and other violent crime was not unrelated to the renewed public attention being paid to the Jamaat al Muslimeen. One source told the Sunday Express the word on the street was to "lie low".
Sources, speaking on condition of strict anonymity, report that some individual bad boys have gone underground and that the frequently expressed apprehension of walking the mean streets of some neighbourhoods have all but disappeared.
The last kidnapping, that of Rodney Deosaran, the son of a sanitation magnate, was in early July, short weeks before the start of the Sunday Express series which focused, among other things, on Bakr's role as mediator and broker in the phenomenal new criminal enterprise of kidnapping.
