Things are really not the same when you see racial assault on TV or read it on newspaper and when you visit your friend in a hospital to discover him assaulted.
It all happened today evening. Two of our friends after their work at Dept. of Health, Quarry House, Leeds (UK) were heading for their houses (around 5-10 min walk) as usual in jovial mood. Suddenly, Sardar (one of the two friends) realized a push from the back as they found a tall, well-built man passed between them with noise and probably abuses. Considering another drunk man on the street they hardly paid any attention and just ignored and continued walking.
But it was not over. They found the man coming back and screaming “Paki” (this is how South Asians in UK are addressed with racism). Sardar and the friend continued ignoring and got alerted to escape from the situation quietly. The man then pounced on them trying to hold them on their laptop bags from the back. He was screaming something like “…how can you ignore me ….. you Pakis… give me what ever you have … ”. The two friends discovering were being attacked by a beast just tried to run away. As the other friend succeeded, unfortunately Sardar got hit on his leg and fell down. The Beast continued hitting Sardar by his shoes, hardly giving him any chance for self-defence.
When the other friend realized that Sardar left behind, he returned to protect and found him only in blood. By this time some (probably local) people on the street stopped their car and asking the beast to calm down with blowing horns. This made the beast to run away continuing abuses.
The Sardar in complete shock, anger and pain called other team members through mobile. With the help of another friend the two soon reached to the hospital immediately where all started visiting the Sardar when the news came out. As the other friend who helped them to the hospital says,”…Sardar ki halat dekh ke mera to khun khol utha … ” it was really heart-rendering.
By the time I along with my flat mate and other friends reach the hospital Sardar was out of the shock but the pain clearly reflected on his face. I was just trying to figure out the pain was only because of the incident happened or also because of trying it hard to convince the cop (already on investigation for more than an hour) that it was more than mere robbery case.
After spending some time there we called for a taxi to get home back with the friend who with Sardar during the incident as Sardar was admitted in the hospital for the night. Inside the taxi the driver (again a south Asian) was quick to discover that it was a racial assault and started sharing his experience. “… I stay in Leeds only. Once I was standing near the city centre and I discovered a blow on my head from the back. I fall down and tried to find out with my hands what happened on my head. My hands were filled with blood. I stood up. I found nobody around except the realization that somebody is running away … ”.
It’s almost 4 AM now. I am expecting that the cop would file a right case and bring the culprit to the law.
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