Explosion of grenade: Involve State National Defence to bring closure - BPS

The Bureau of Public Safety has called on the State National Defence to act swiftly to discover events leading to the explosion of military grenades at the La beach to ensure closure is brought to the matter due to the apparent weakness of the country’s law enforcement agencies.

This follows reports of the explosion of military-grade grenades at the La Beach on Tuesday, 4 August 2020.

Some three siblings who had gone to the beach to play got injured following the explosion.

The children were aged between 5 and 10 years.

The Military discovered more grenades when they later visited the site of the incidence.

Reacting to the incident in a statement, the Bureau of Public Safety noted it is “indeed worried over this development and its possible impact on public safety assurance, especially in the lead to Election 2020.”

According to the Bureau, “With [political] vigilantism still holding a potent place in our partisan politics largely hinged on brawl for profit (aka ‘vigilantepreneurship’), and the apparent weakness of the State’s law enforcement agency in dealing swiftly and robustly with same, coupled with rogue business elements that may be acting internally and/or externally seeking to profit from a destabilised State, National Defence must act swiftly to obtain a full appreciation of the situation and bring closure to the matter.”

The Bureau is, therefore, calling “on the Government to escalate the investigation from the Police CID jurisdiction to the National Defense jurisdiction for a swift and exhaustive investigations to be carried out to establish the likely motive and circumstances leading to military-grade grenades appearing on our shores with less than 4 months to a Presidential election.”

It also demanded answers on: “How did military-grade grenades arrive at our shores? How far can these grenades be traced? Were the grenades washed ashore or someone or a group of persons 'acting out' just dumped the grenades at the beach? Could there be more of such mass-casualty ballistics within the jurisdiction in rogue hands?”

The Bureau further continued that the “National Defense must deploy intelligence beyond this investigations to secure our territorial integrity and assure the public of its safety.”

It also commended “the Police service highly for swift action in this matter and in providing information and assurances of further investigations to the public” and urged “the public to always engage the police or the Bureau of Public Safety on suspicious items, behaviours and circumstances within and outside their communities.”