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SignUp Now!HEAVILY-ARMED police and soldiers escorting security guards, acting on behalf of the Land Settlement Agency (LSA), returned to a squatting village at Carapo Village in Arima yesterday and tore down close to 100 homes which were illegally erected on State lands.
The exercise was a continuation of what occurred in the area on Friday.
When the Sunday Express visited the area yesterday, several structures were demolished under the watchful eyes of police, soldiers and personnel from Smart Security Company, which was contracted by the LSA.
Occupants complied with instructions to remove their belongings from the shacks, which were then broken down by workmen armed with sledge hammers and crowbars. They were expected to destroy 147 structures in the area.
According to the operations manager at Smart Security Services and Justice of the Peace Hamid Mohammed, his company and the police were acting on information supplied by the LSA to remove structures which were recently erected.
Mohammed said, "The LSA, through the EMBD (Estate Management and Business Development Company), has contracted our security services to do an exercise which we did similarly in Cashew Gardens, to ensure all trespassers on their (State) land or land-grabbers are evicted from the property.
"The process, which we have been doing since yesterday (Friday), is that certain houses... after LSA did their survey, documentation were prepared and presented to us, and the houses that you see coming down today (yesterday), are houses that were identified to us by LSA that they should be taken off. That's our exercise and it's going to continue until all the unauthorised structures are removed," Mohammed said.