Santokh’s bravery

Jul 28 2008 by Andrew Baldwin, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

ROBBERY victim Santokh Lal is showing incredible bravery in the face of five armed robberies at his shop.

Lesser people would have given up, but not him. He insists he will keep working behind the counter at SK News in Stile Common.

The people in this area of Newsome Road are very lucky to have him.

Despite his troubles, he says: “This is a nice community.”

Some of the incidents have involved knife-wielding yobs, hardly surprising in these days when we read so much about this sort of problem.

Even more worryingly, two of the attempted robberies have been by men armed with guns.

It is a situation which realises a community’s worst fears and must not be allowed to escalate.

The perpetrators of these attacks must be caught before someone is killed.

While it is true that these gunmen have not fired their weapons while trying to hold up Mr Lal, the inevitable conclusion is that they might someday.

The gunmen are sheltering somewhere and they must be weeded out.

We would urge anyone with information on them to come forward before someone dies.

Tragedies such as those at US colleges are unlikely to be repeated here because of our strict firearms licensing and gun control.

But the fact that these weapons are out there on our streets and that people are prepared to use them should be a stark warning to this country.

Violence is playing a much bigger part in today’s society and we cannot afford to relax our approach.