By: Gurbir Singh Hamilton (New Zealand), 29 November,2017:
Robberies and violent assaults on dairy-owners in New Zealand show no sign of slowing down.
No day passes without reports of shop owners being threatened and robbed or injured in violent robberies by youth gangs. Most of the dairies or liquor stores are owned by Indians and in spite of street protests and assurances by the previous National government and police authorities, nothing seems to have changed.
On Monday, a Hamilton dairy-owner, Ajit Farrar, 58, lost his eye and suffered serious facial and hand injuries by knife-wielding robbers who attempted to rob his dairy.
This happened at 12.45pm when four masked and hooded assailants entered his family-owned dairy and one of them lunged at Ajit with a knife.
Ajit , who was alone at that time and has lived in New Zealand for 30 years, tried to grab the blade of the knife. It appears he was then stabbed in the eye and received several other injuries on his face and hands, including few broken teeth, while trying to save himself from the attack.
Doctors at the local hospital where Ajit is recovering, informed him today that he won’t be able to see again from that eye.
Hi shop was robbed several times earlier also, and due to safety concerns, the family is now considering shutting down the business.
Robbers have been caught on CCTV entering the store and the Hamilton police are appealing for information.
In another incident the same day at a dairy in South Auckland, three members of the Patel family were viciously assaulted.
Nanu Patel was violently attacked as he was closing the shutter of his shop around 8.30pm on Monday night when suddenly, two robbers entered and hit him in the face and punched him in the eyes, head and ribs.
With his head pouring with blood, he shouted for help to his wife and daughter who were in the home attached to the dairy.
One of the robbers then walked through the shop to the house and repeatedly hit his wife, Hasumata in the face and broke the jaw of their 30-year-old daughter.
Timely intervention by a customer perhaps saved the family from more bodily harm as he challenged the robbers. They left taking just a laptop with them.
Both offenders were tracked, and later arrested by the police.
This was the second robbery in their store in two months.
Another Indian couple, Bhaskar Desai and wife, Varsha who have run a Postshop-cum-Kiwibank in Auckland for more than 12 years, have been robbed seven times since 2008.
Now, the Kiwibank has decided to remove the banking operation at their franchise next month due to safety concerns. This has left the couple high and dry as it would result in loss of their livelihood.
No shopkeeper feels safe and they are asking for more stringent punishments to offenders, and until that happens, law and order in ‘Godszone’ is not likely to improve.
-------
- Gurbir Singh is a Hamilton-based freelance Feature Writer & Journalist. You can contact him at: gurbir@journalist.com