Gurbir Singh. Auckland, May 09, 2017: After a spate of brutal aggravated robberies and attacks on liquor stores and dairies (owner-operated convenience stores), Auckland store owners may resort to go on hunger strike if the Government fails to protect the small businesses.
This decision was taken by the local Indian community leaders and store owners at a meeting held on 7th May at Papatoetoe, a suburb of Auckland to discuss the epidemic increase of robberies and violent assaults that have left several shop owners seriously injured and traumatised.
The meeting, initiated by the Crime Prevention Group, Stop Crime NZ organiser, Sunny Kaushal, was also attended by leaders of country’s leading political parties, including ruling National Party list MP, Parmjeet Parmar; Labour Party MP, Michael Wood; NZ First Party leader, Winston Peters; Act Party leader David Seymour and Green Party list MP, Denise Roche.
Most leaders acknowledged issues associated with rising crime and offered different solutions to curb it, including the ruling party’s recent decision to boost police numbers by 1100 in next 4 years. But most of the parties had reservations about amending the law to give it more teeth or permitting shop owners the right to self defence.
There is a move now to submit a petition to the Parliament calling for a review of the effectiveness of current police policies and strategy and signatures are being mobilised.
Amandeep
Earlier on 28th April an estimated gathering of 500 to 600 shop owners, victims and their families took to the streets of Manukau (South Auckland) to protest and calling on the government for tougher laws to deal with perpetrators of crime.
Majority of protesters were Indians and included family of a victim, Jitesh Arora, who was badly injured in an aggravated robbery at his Crown Superette in Mt Roskill, Auckland on March 12 this year when seven people entered his dairy armed with a baseball bat and crowbar. He has undergone numerous surgeries and more than 200 stitches and is still unable to feel or use his right arm. In this case, two teenage girls, aged 13 and 14 have been charged with aggravated robbery however, due to under age, no action is likely to be taken against them.
In 2014 also, the Manukau Indian Association had organised a similar protest march on 3rdAugust after West Auckland dairy owner, Arun Kumar, was stabbed to death while working at his store, and two others also met a similar fate while working in a local pawn shop.
In New Zealand, majority of the liquor stores and dairies are owned by Indians and most robberies are for tobacco or cash. Brazen daylight robberies have become so rampart that no shop owner feels safe. In one case, Tara Singh-Bains’ stores in Auckland were reportedly broken into seven times and he was robbed eight times in one week itself. He has now closed his business and moved to a quiet town, Reglan, 150kms from Auckland.
Hemant Lal, who owns the Kingsway Dairy in Hikurangi, north of Whangārei, has been held up nine times in 13 years and in one instance, his head was bashed with an iron bar. At another time, a robber slashed his elderly father's hands with a knife. Hemant fought back to defend his father, but ended up with police charging him for assault. But the charge was later dropped.
Similarly, Virender Singh who used a hockey stick in self-defence during a violent attempted robbery attack on his store in Otara, South Auckland, himself became a victim of a police prosecution.
Indy Purewal’s family have owned the Redhill Superette in Papakura (Auckland) for 21 years and have been robbed 17 or 18 times.
Dairy or liquor store robberies are not just a problem for Auckland, but for the rest of the country also. In Tauranga,200kms from Auckland, for example, at least 6 robberies involving weapons, have occurred since 6th April this year. Latest victim on 7th May was the Carlisle Street Convenience Store, Tauranga when two men, one armed with a hammer robbed the store of cash and cigarettes. This was their third robbery in three years.
Most of these robberies are committed by gang of youths(at times, as young as 13 or 14), who barge in shops, faces covered, brandishing knives, hammers, guns, screw drivers, axes threaten staff to hand over cash, tobacco or whatever they can lay their hands on. They do not hesitate to use their weapons even without any provocation.
Such rising incidents have enraged dairy owners to a point where some of them are considering keeping firearms to defend themselves but police vehemently oppose owners keeping even baseball bats or hockey sticks to defend themselves or their property.
Some of the dairy owners have installed iron mesh wires on their counters, panic alarms, multiple CCTV cameras, iron grills outside the store etc. to safeguard themselves.
No one seems to have the silver bullet to solve the problem yet, and few believe that any increase in police numbers is going to stop such incidents from happening.
--Gurbir Singh is a New Zealand-based freelance feature writer & journalist. He can be contacted at: gurbir@journalist.com