On Saturday, March 25, Crime Prevention Group - the newly formed community group against increasing nuisance of aggravated robberies and burglaries - finally managed to meet the Associate Minister for Justice, Mark Mitchell, along with two National Party MP's of the Kiwi-Indian community, Kanwaljit Bakshi and Dr Parmjeet Parmar.
The meeting was convened after the group has already launched a petition with the aim of getting 10,000 signatures from the wider community to force the government to undertake a review of the effectiveness of current New Zealand police policies as a result of the significant increase in aggravated robberies and brutal attacks on the small business owners.
Sunny Kaushal, the lead organiser of this group says that “enough is enough and the community has to take some tangible action to address the burgeoning problem of assault and robberies.”
The petition was launched on Thursday, March 23, and the group also plans a major protest next month to bring wider support on the issue.
Meanwhile, the meeting with the minister, which was a closed-door consultation between the victims of aggravated robberies, members of the Indian community and the Minister about the increasing number of assaults on the small businesses owners, turned out be stormy.
Apparently, the members of the community were incensed by Kiwi-Indian MP's seeming apathy towards the cause and their failure to raise a strong voice in the parliament rather than government's seeming inability to positively intervene.
“The community expects Kiwi-Indian MPs to be proactive rather than just being reactive on such issues that are seriously affecting small business owners in our community,” Mr Kaushal said.
Now the Crime Prevention Group is determined to change this situation of “inaction” and force the government to review and bring tougher laws to deter the perpetrators of aggravated robberies about the consequences of their action.
Currently, the community largely believes that there are no serious consequences attached to repeated criminal activities and the burden to overcome the financial, emotional, and medical recovery falls painfully on small business owners and their families.
Although these are very early days for the group, it seems that the wider community is rallying up with the group and keeping them informed about individual robbery incidents around the Auckland.
Indian Weekender accompanied Mr Kaushal on Sunday, March 26, on his visits to small businesses who were robbed earlier in the day to speak directly with the victims and the incidents.
A total of three robberies were reported just in one day, two at East Tamaki petrol stations and one in Henderson.
In one of the petrol station, a group of eight people barged in with rods, broke the glass door and emptied racks of cigarettes.
The lone staffer at the shop at the time of the robbery was on training and struggled to escape safely from the scene at the time of the incident, one of the employees of the store told Indian Weekender on the condition of anonymity.
Fortunately, he escaped unhurt, as this time the offenders had chosen to not launch an unprovoked brutal attack on the shopkeeper, unlike two weeks ago in a Mt Roskill dairy robbery where the offenders had battered husband-wife owners at the shop.
However, the trainee employee remains scared and unprepared to return to work soon.
Another employee, who spoke with Indian Weekender, on the condition of anonymity, complained about this plight of getting adequate staff to work for their businesses especially at wee hours of the day when staff often feels vulnerable due to increasing incidences of assault and robberies.
Crime Prevention Group is seeking an immediate intervention from the government starting with some stringent laws which raise the cost of indulging in such criminal activities.
The meeting concluded with Minster’s assurance of taking community’s concern back to parliament and take corrective actions soon.
The Minister has agreed to form that an advisory group led by Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi, the National Party MP and the Chairman of law and order select committee in the parliament.
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