Victim heartened by support
Sangeet Mehta considered selling up shop and moving back to India with his family after being burgled three times in a month, but thanks to an outpouring of community support they’re staying put.
The Prebbleton Dairy fell victim to two ramraids and a break-in through smashed windows during April and May. Items worth about $2500 were stolen.
Since then, even local children in the small town on the outskirts of Christchurch have rallied around to help.
During the ramraids, Mehta, his wife Falguni and his 16-month-old son Vyom were woken up as glass shattered everywhere, only metres away from where they slept.
‘‘I was just behind that wall, my house is there, I can see it through the cameras, everything, but can’t do anything because there’s three people, four people inside.’’
Focused on the safety of his family, he recently spent thousands of dollars to install bollards as well as steel gates across the windows and door.
The shop damage was covered by insurance, but by the third time he was running the risk of no longer being covered, he said.
He and his wife thought about packing up, selling the shop and getting ‘‘the hell out of here’’ to move back to India where they were from, Mehta said.
However, he was overwhelmed by the support from the local community which helped him ‘‘stand up’’ and stay put, supporting him ‘‘in so many ways’’, he said.
Financial help came from a mufti-day fundraiser held by nearby Prebbleton School. It raised about $1100 in gold coin donations to go towards repairing his shopfront.
The moral support and the thought behind it was what helped the most, he said. He had 5-year-olds come into the shop, giving him 20 cent coins saying: ‘‘You can keep this for your door.’’
‘‘Twenty cents is $2 million for me,’’ Mehta said. ‘‘They’re standing next to me, that’s important.’’
The bollards were put up by a local builder and regular customer who only charged him for the material costs for the first three, put up soon after the ramraids. Another five have since been installed and Mehta next plans to put up steel bars.
Last month, a 13-year-old boy admitted being involved in four dairy burglaries, three of which were at the Prebbleton Dairy.