Justice Sought: Indian Dairy Workers Petition NZ Parliament

Wellington, June 21 (IANS) A group of dairy store owners, mostly Indian, delivered a petition signed by 34,000 individuals to the New Zealand Parliament on Wednesday, imploring the government to combat growing crime and thievery. According to the NZ Herald, petitioners want more police on the streets, legal repercussions for parents of young offenders, and harsher punishments for teens.

New Zealand Dairy and Business Owners Group head Sunny Kaushal stated, “We are being burgled and robbed 18 times a day, we are getting ram-raided every ten hours.” The petition was motivated by the violent stabbing death of 34-year-old Janak Patel, an Indian-origin dairy worker, during a heist at Rose Cottage Superette in Sandringham last year. Three people are on trial for his murder next year.

New Zealanders protested after Patel’s murder, calling for tougher robbery laws. New attempts to combat retail crime, such as a NZ$4,000 incentive for store owners to install fog cannons, have failed.

Patel’s father petitioned for government action to avert such tragedies. A manifesto proposed reforming self-defense and property defense legislation based on the Australian Criminal Code, among other things.

“We need to feel safe in our communities… it is a time for red lines before we have another murder in New Zealand,” Sunny Kaushal told NZ Herald. Three masked individuals broke into Pawik Patel’s Goulstone Road vape business and stole NZ$8,000 in items a day before the petition was submitted.

According to Ministry of External Affairs figures, 240,000 Indian residents—160,000 of Indian ancestry and 80,000 NRIs—makeup 5% of New Zealand’s population. Northland has roughly 23 ram raids through November 20, 2022, according to government records.