Riots ebb, fear persists

As the cinder and ash clears up in the post riot clean-up in London, it is just the beginning of a nightmare for most Gujarati retailers who have lost a life time’s earnings and investment.
Says Bhuliba Patel, 70, of Birmingham. “Just two years back, I sold off all my ancestral land in Isroli (near Bardoli, Surat) and invested all my savings in the store.The store was insured, but not for riots. We will have nowhere to go now.” Widowed early in life, she raised three daughters with her earnings from a day job at a costume jewellery store in Croydon and agreed to shift with her youngest daughter Bindu and son-in-law Bhadresh Patel,who ran ‘Utsavi’, an Indian saris and goods store in Birmingham.
Many arrests were made from the area, but the Patels and their neighbours are still in a shock and state of disbelief to identify anyone, “They were just kids! They first set fire to a massive building down the street, smashed shop window displays, looted what they could get their hands on and then walked off after they set the police cars ablaze. There were 2,000 policemen but even they were not enough,” says Bhavika Patel, 23,a student of Birmingham University, King’s College.
While the riots seem to be under control, Gujarati store owners are still wary. “In the 13 years that I have run my store, I have never seen anything like this,” says Rajan Jariwala, who runs Prachi Creations in South West London. “I don’t know how to explain what’s happening to my daughters aged 14 and 10. Our area was comparatively safe but on Monday we shut the store at 5 pm, there was talk that the riots had reached Croydon which is about four miles from here.On Tuesday, they reached Clapham which is about two miles and we shut down at 2 pm.”
On Wednesday, Jariwala dared not open the store. “It’s not just the unemployed, last night one of the arrested rioters turned out to be a teacher’s assistant,” adds Jariwala.