Why this dairy-owning couple want to leave NZ

Sandip and Pinky Patel had high hopes for a better life for their family when they came to New Zealand from India.

They bought a Hamilton East dairy 11 years ago and have worked 12-hour days, seven days a week while bringing up their two daughters.

Now their older daughter, 25, is working in sales and the younger has just finished school and will go to university in Auckland next year.

It sounds like every hard-working immigrant’s dream: a successful business, children launched into careers.

But instead the couple are living under daily stress, never sure when they might next be confronted by an armed robber demanding cigarettes and cash.

New Zealand has proved to be no haven for the couple, and now they want to return to India. ‘‘I don’t want to stay here,’’ says Sandip. ‘‘My country is (much) safer than New Zealand now.’’

Four years ago he was the victim of a vicious attack in their dairy by two teens wielding machetes. His ordeal left him with numerous cuts and a fractured

skull as he defended himself from the attackers who fled with cigarettes and cash.

Since then, despite boosting security at their Emm Jay Dairy, the couple have been living in a state of fear. They keep their shop entrance door locked, opening it only when they have checked out the customer, but even so Pinky has had to activate their fog cannon twice in the face of demands for cigarettes.

Sandip, who works at a separate job until 3pm, says he phones Pinky 10 times a day to check she is okay at the dairy.

‘‘We are not safe any more here,’’ Pinky says. ‘‘Not at all.’’

Sandip says New Zealand was good when they first arrived, but now the crime rate is rising ever higher, and the Government should be controlling it.

He thinks the law needs to change, particularly around younger offenders. ‘‘If they know how to do attack, how to do robbery, then how come they are like teenagers?’’ he asks. ‘‘They are not teenagers.’’

On November 23, there was a tragic echo of the attack Sandip suffered when Hamilton man Janak Patel, 34, was fatally stabbed after an alleged robbery at the Auckland dairy he was working at.

Sandip knew the dead man, describing him as a gentleman, and wonders what will happen to his family.

Enough is enough, and the Patels want to sell up. If they can find a buyer, they will be returning to their home country.

‘‘Definitely, I’m going back to India, I don’t want to stay here,’’ Sandip says. ‘‘Scary, every day, scary.’’