The owners of an Auckland liquor store say they feared for their lives when two teenagers violently robbed their shop in the middle of the day.
A 16-year-old female and a 17-year-old male targeted the store in broad daylight, with one of them brandishing a baseball bat.
Sarabjit Singh was the first target in the frenzied attack when he was hit outside the front of his Manurewa liquor store. The woman ran inside to steal two boxes of booze while Singh struggled with the other thief. But Singh's wife Maninderpreet Kaur fought back.
"When I saw my husband - because he got blood on the head and the face - I got very angry," she said.
She grabbed a piece of plywood and swung it at the teen holding a baseball bat. Singh then tackled him to the ground while Kaur took on the female robber.
Locals jumped in to help while the pair held the thieves down, but the threats kept coming.
"After that [the female robber] says, 'I will kill you, I will see you again'," Kaur said.
Kaur said she thought she might die.
"I'm scared now again, because this happened before in 2016."
Singh was stabbed at the same store during a robbery four years ago. This time around, he suffered a head injury.
"He's still [has] a headache, the pain is too much. Last night he's not sleeping well," she said.
The two teens were arrested at the scene and appeared in the youth court.
The liquor store owners say they're fearful the two thieves will return after being released on bail.
There's also concern from retailers that incidents similar to this will rise because they believe financial hardship from COVID-19 is a catalyst for crime.
"They don't have that amount of food in their pantry or cash in their pocket or money in their bank to last, and they're being pushed to do crimes," Gurdeep Singh from the Auckland Indian Retailers Association said.
Theft is also a double-hit for retailers who are already struggling to make ends meet in the COVID-19 economy.
"The stress is already there, even without the robbery," he added.
Kaur said she and her husband can't afford extra security, and instead wants more police on the beat and harsher penalties.
"The law is very soft here. If they're giving them hard punishment, they're not doing [crime] next time."
But until then, she said she'll continue to live in fear of another attack.
