LONDON: The Indian community in Ireland is relieved as finally the first arrests have taken place following a spate of racist attacks targeting them over the summer.On Friday morning the Gardaí (Ireland’s national police force) announced they had arrested a male in his 30s and a male juvenile teen for the brutal attack on the Indian Amazon employee in Tallaght, Dublin, on July 19, which was the first attack to hit the headlines in India.“Both males are currently detained under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984 at Garda stations in South Dublin. Investigations are ongoing,” the Garda told TOI.A highly-skilled Indian national, aged in his 40s, was stripped naked, stabbed and left almost for dead by a gang near a roundabout in Kilnamanagh, Tallaght. He had only arrived in Ireland a week earlier and his 11-month-old baby and wife were still in India.Local resident Jennifer Murray, who found him, said: “They gashed his forehead open, punched him in the head, threw him to the ground, and he was left with massive head injuries. They removed his trousers, underwear, phone, bank card, shoes, everything. They very easily could have killed him.”This was followed by numerous other attacks targeting persons of Indian origin in Ireland over the summer. There have been no arrests in any of the other cases. However the attacks, mostly perpetrated by children and teenagers, stopped after schools re-opened in Sept and the nights grew darker.Some Aditya Mandal, an AI professional from West Bengal working in Dublin, said: “The Indian community welcomes this positive development and expresses its sincere gratitude to the Irish govt, An Garda Síochána, and the Indian embassy. We remain confident that justice will be delivered and that the culprits will be held accountable.”“The whole system is very bureaucratic. To make an arrest they need to go through loops of the legal system and that is why the delay. It is not like the UK,” explained Anand Kumar Pandey, a member of the Ireland-India Council. “The Indian community is very happy about the arrests. The process is slow but it seems like all the efforts we made put the pressure on.”
