Here are the news articles

http://www.pcij.org/i-report/2007/indians.html

(documentary on Indians living in fear in the Philippines by Philippine centre for investigative journalism)

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/145780/2-more-killed-as-attacks-against-Indians-continue

http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2009/jan/17/yehey/top_stories/20090117top4.html = read this

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/141787/Indian-national-shot-dead-near-Batangas-market

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/metro-manila/02/09/09/indian-national-kidnapped-bulacan

Indians and the Asians are the only ones that seem to have any work. The whites are leaving in droves. South Auckland is fast becoming a Pacific majority area. The only Europeans that are staying put are either too poor to go to the North Shore (another Auckland suburb) or are too lazy or too old to move to Australia.

Most Indians in the area are not very educated. And the Asians can’t speak English to save their lives. The net result is that opening a small business is the only way they can get out of the lower middle class.

Also, I may sound callous but greed defines the small business owner.

Navtej used to close his shop very late at 11pm. His was perhaps the last store in the market that closed. The previous owner used to close at 6.30pm and also during slow times during the day. But Navtej even asked the neighbouring store owner, a Chinese owner of a fish and chips store, to stay open late because business was good between 9pm and 10pm. The Chinese refused.

Working that late was clearly asking for trouble. In an area of acute poverty and hopelessness, trashy homes, beat up cars, and where rowdy youth roam free, where police presence is zero, you don’t do such things. It was not bravery it was bravado. And Navtej, a good man, got blinded by his enthusiasm.

The police anywhere in the world are stupid and rubbernecks. Auckland cops are no different. There have been huge scandals in the police force here, pack rapes, corruption but Navtej’s case was pure shitting in the pants. In Auckland, the police react immediately, arriving in seconds if it’s a case of family violence. But dial murder and they take forever. I knew a guy in a Mobil gas station located near a big intersection, who saw a murder bang in the middle of the road. He dialled the cops and when they didn’t arrive after 10 minutes he called them again to be told they were arriving. Finally he saw ordinary folk carry the (perhaps) dying man to hospital.

In Navtej’s case it wasn’t racism. Yes, they had to follow their code of procedure which says the lives of medics and cops cannot be endangered if they have to hit a crime scene. But a bold officer would have acted quickly and taken the injured man’s family’s word that the gunmen had fled. But sadly there was not one good man brave enough to reach the store.

Auckland has reached the tipping point in terms of crime. People walk into stores and bully the owners, steal stuff, ask for petrol money. It’s not easy being a store owner.

I have no idea where this will end. I left New Delhi two years ago and arrived in New Zealand because life is easy here. The lifestyle is laidback, at work the colleagues are laidback. As a journalist life is easier than home because the standards of English here are quite low, whereas in India a single mistake or improper expression can cause mayhem the day after publication. So for me work is relaxed. I use half my brain and it suits me just fine.

But the other side of the coin is that I have to worry about my wife when she goes out shopping at the mall. And I have reason to worry about my little boy.

A day after Navtej’s shooting, a bar in the same suburb, Manurewa, was robbed at gunpoint and $4000 taken.

Two days after Navtej’s shooting, an 80-year-old Chinese woman was killed in her flat by a robber.

Four days later a Chinese woman and her 8-year-old son were attacked in a parking lot in the biggest mall in the area. The woman died in hospital.

Minutes before that the same group had tried to attack another Asian woman and tried to snatch her day’s collection. She escaped because she locked her car windows and stayed inside.

Three days later, a man walked into a jewellery shop and walked away with an emerald costing $8000. As he inspected the gem, he said: You can call your insurance company because I’m taking this. They even opened the security doors for him to leave so nobody would get hurt but the idiot fiddled with the handle and the doors got locked.

New Zealand has never attracted India’s brightest. Now even the second and third rung talent will think twice about setting out for Aotearoa.

Satnam Satnam Satnam

[Baljit, I will excuse the incoherence as it is written as an emotional plea. However DO NOT write in all caps again. It does not add anything....Admin Singh]

The ‘panic button’ sounds like a great suggestion. I hope they do implement such a thing there in New Zealand.

Again, thank you for taking the time to express your opinion and answer a few of my questions.