On the road to recovery

The Kiwi-Indian man stabbed in Manurewa recently is now recovering from his injuries but says that he is in constant fear of getting hurt again. Three young men attacked Sarabjit Singh, 46, with double-bladed knives on the night of February 28, which is being seen as an attempt of robbery.

Singh sounds frightened as he describes the horror night, “I was attacked from behind. They didn’t ask for anything—liquor, money, nothing. They just attacked. “One of them stabbed me with a knife on my back. I ran away and they attacked me again but I fell down and escaped the attack. I pushed the man with my legs and the other man ran inside the store where my wife was.” Singh’s wife,

Maninderpreet Kaur who was scared by the whole incident turned on the alarm. A group of people who were “partying across the road”, came running to help after hearing the alarm. One of the robbers who was grabbed by people threw bottles at them and ran away. According to Singh, the same group of “robbers” had attempted robbery at a liquor store in Takanini just before heading to his store in Manurewa. “The store owner in Takanini showed me the pictures of the group of men who had come to his store earlier, at around 8:30 p.m. and stole some liquor. “I could recognise them. They were the same boys. He said that he was following the robbers’ car and saw them heading inside their house on Great South Road, Auckland.”

While the police have already arrested three men involved in the robbery, Singh says there was a woman who was also involved. She was driving the car and parked it outside the store on the wrong side. Singh believes that she is equally responsible for the crime, as she was helping the men carry out the robberies. The police have been in constant touch with Singh since the incident. They have visited his store and taken fingerprints and have informed him that the offenders will next be produced in the court on March 18.

Singh says that he appreciates the police’s help in solving the matter but is not satisfied with the way laws work in such cases. “There should be some hard rules to stop such crimes. The crimes against liquor storeowners keep on growing. I am afraid in my own store now. I feel frightened by every other customer. I keep asking myself, ‘Is he going to attack me?’. There is a constant fear now. I have been living in New Zealand for 20 years but never felt like this before.” Police suggest that people should have proper insurance covers to ensure that they get back the things they have lost.

However, Singh argues that although he has everything insured in his store, “if somebody steals a few bottles of liquor I am not going to claim money for it. It is not a big loss. But if this keeps happening then I am losing a lot. What do we do then?” Every few weeks or so, we hear such stories that create a situation of constant fear among small business owners, especially in the Indian community. Reforming the law to provide safety to people is the need of the hour.

Sarabjit adds, “I was lucky that when I was attacked I was outside the store. Had the attack been inside the store, there hardly would have been space for me to run and save myself. Also there were people across the road who could come for our help and we were saved.”

Many of our community members have lost their lives in such crimes and in many cases; people have been attacked for things that value less than $10. We stand with Sarabjit in his situation and as the police advice, if any such situation arises, focus on saving lives more than saving things or money.