THE demonstration against the electricity hike for Linden residents stepped up yesterday when some main streets in the town became impassable to vehicular traffic. In the melee of things which occurred on day four of the scheduled five days of protest, a Ministry of Public Works dump truck and low bed truck which were headed into the town were stopped and the low bed truck’s engine was set ablaze at South Lane Amelia’s Ward, while the drivers were forced out of the vehicles.
The protest also degenerated into thuggery as many persons were robbed and assaulted.
The protesters were all over and the police and army ranks were unable to cope with them as they spread themselves out engaging in blocking off vehicular traffic through some of the main streets in the town, particularly the roads going to One Mile and Half Mile and Wisrock, and also along Burnham Drive among others on the west bank on the Mackenzie-Wismar Bridge in Wismar.
Over on the Mackenzie shore the Washer Pond Road, the main artery to reach the Masckenzie /Wismar Bridge from central Mackenzie, was littered with rocks last evening and along Sir David Rose Avenue into the Linden Highway from Kara Kara to South Lane Amelia’s Ward were filled with all sorts of debris as old tires, wood and other materials were set alight along the way.
Hundreds of persons lined the streets in Linden and at one time the patrols at the Mackenzie-Wismar Bridge were removed when, just approaching 15.00hrs, as the bodies of the three persons killed on day two Wednesday at the Mackenzie-Wismar Bridge were taken from the Upper Demerara Hospital mortuary and whisked by a patrol pickup across the Mackenzie-Wismar Bridge.
The army and police escorts were able to air dash the bodies to Georgetown via a helicopter which had come to the Mackenzie sports Club ground and the law enforcers took up strategic positions to ensure the safe movement of the dead persons went unhindered.
The presence of the Alliance For Change’s Nigel Hughes and his wife, Cathy, Gerharad Ramsaroop, David Paterson along with Christopher Ram also spoke to the crowd, giving them advice of what measures should be taken to ensure their knowledge of what went on the night that the three persons were killed.