DUBLIN: A Gala store owned by an Indian in Willowpark, Finglas, was attacked by anti-social teenagers. Soji Mathew, the shop owner, said that his staff are living in fear as gangs of teenagers threaten them on a daily basis.
The attack last took place last Thursday evening. Dozens of young people entered the store, took several items and threw objects at the staff. The group begin to take ice-creams, jellies and chocolates. The shop workers ran to pull the shutters on the front of the shop. One person was slightly injured in the incident.
The majority of the attackers weren’t wearing facemasks. Some of them were recording the incident on their mobile phones.
Soji said all three employees of the shop were working in fear. “This happens all the time but it was never this bad before. We reopened on Friday and there were up to 100 people gathered in the local park and we rang gardai to come. They quickly dispersed then,” he said.
In 2019, there was an armed robbery that resulted in the theft of a large amount of money. “We have a lot of nice customers but there are regulars who come in and take stuff. We don’t feel safe in our own shop,” he said.
Soji Mathew, a Keralite, said he moved to Ireland with his family for a better life, but that running a company in this setting is extremely stressful. Soji has been running the store for two years.
A Garda spokesman who confirmed the attack said an investigation is underway. “One person received minor injuries during the course of the incident. No arrests have been made. Investigations ongoing,” the spokesman said.
Soji Mathew urges migrant traders to stand together against these incidents
There are a number of attacks in the Dublin area on companies run by immigrant entrepreneurs. Soji Mathew says that one of the reasons for the recurrence of such incidents is that most of them take the incident lightly and do not report it properly.
Most people do not respond for fear of losing business. Soji Mathew opined that the need for a system in which traders work together legally is essential to combat organized attacks on migrant traders.
He urged migrant traders to be prepared to stand together as a group to seek solutions to such problems, rather than seeking justice alone.
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