Author: Suman Bhuchar
Publication: The Telegraph
Date: October 20, 2001
It is the first day of Navratri
and, at their modest terrace house in Derby, the Shukla family is recovering
from a frightening ordeal. They have been to the temple and offered prasad
of nuts and misri to their guests.
Radhika, their 15-year-old-daughter,
has just been discharged from hospital after being viciously beaten up
with a claw hammer by a gang of eight to 10 Pakistani youths. She is wearing
black jeans and a faded pink T-shirt but her arm is in a sling. Derby,
famed throughout the world for its Rolls-Royce cars, has 30,000 Indians
and 18,000 Pakistanis. Relations have been tense since September 11 and
have been made worse by pockets of support among Pakistani youths for Osama
bin Laden. Now, after the unprovoked assault on Radhika, matters have deteriorated.
Radhika comes across as a bright
girl. Despite her ordeal, she looks calm but there is bruise around her
right eye. In the current tense atmosphere, her parents, Prem and Bina
Shukla, will not allow her to go back to school where she was attacked.
The Shukla family sits in a small
backroom and recalls its nightmare. On Monday at lunchtime, a Pakistani
gang of 15-19 year olds descended upon Derby Moor Community School with
claw hammers and started beating up Radhika, three of her friends and two
teachers as they made their way from one school building to the refectory.
Shukla, 50, a former British Rail
crane driver who came to Britain from Punjab 35 years ago, says: "I pick
up my daughter every day."
The headmaster, Alan Vaughan, whose
intervention probably saved Radhika's life, the family believes, told him
there has been a "serious incident" at school. "That really shook me,"
says Shukla.
Bina - a Punjabi woman, she changed
her surname from Rai to Roy when she lived in Calcutta - says Radhika and
her friends heard loud noises and turned around to see a gang of boys advancing
with hammers and rods. Radhika fell after being struck on the back of her
neck and on the head with a claw hammer.
She was kept at the Derby Royal
Infirmary till the early hours of Tuesday. She suffered internal bleeding
in her right ear and a hairline fracture on the skull. "One culprit who
attacked our daughter was captured there and then," said Radhika's mother.
Two youths, aged 15 and 19, have been charged by police and another five
are being questioned. The police are trying to ease tension by not revealing
their identities.
Radhika thinks this is wrong "because
they can just come back and hit me again. If I see them again, I will recognise
them straightaway. I am just scared of what I have told the police." Her
father gently tells her not to be scared and describes Radhika as a "very,
very brave girl". It is not clear why she was picked on but at her school
the walls have been daubed with slogans, "Osama bin Laden rules".
It has been suggested that her assailants
targeted her because of a spat last week between a West Indian and a Pakistani
girl over race. Somehow, the latter's headscarf came off during the incident.
The girls later apologised to each other. Radhika herself was not present
during their quarrel, her father points out.
Radhika goes on : "I am good friends
with Pakistani people. At the hospital one of my Pakistani friends rang
me to see if I was all right. 'Was my brother involved?' she asked." Radhika
told her he was not. Another Pakistani friend, who rang her at home, "was
crying".
In all, the Shukla family have received
700 calls, including a few from Pakistani families. Margaret Beckett, the
local MP and leader of the House of Commons, has also telephoned, as had
the Indian High Commissioner, Nareshwar Dayal. Apparently, word has got
back to the Indian prime minister.
One of the guests in the Shukla
household is Gurmit Singh Maan, chairman of the Indian community centre.
He says Hindu, Muslim and Sikh organisations in Derby, concerned at the
escalation in communal tension - some Pakistani shops are being boycotted
by Indians - have had a meeting and set up a steering group.
Another is Krishnan Sharma, a member
of the local Hindu temple, who says: "The president of the temple is telling
people to keep calm and keep their nerves."
