An Indian taxi driver faces losing his livelihood after an unprovoked attack by two passengers last week amid a growing number of racist assaults in Ireland.
“My children are so scared, they have asked me to promise them that I will never drive a taxi again,” said Lakhvir Singh (46).
He is recovering from his physical injuries sustained in the attack but he has been left fearful of what could happen in the future.
The father of two was dropping off two young men at Poppintree Community and Sports Centre when they turned on him and struck him twice across his forehead with a bottle, shouting, “go back to your country”.
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The men ordered the taxi on the FreeNow app at about 11.10pm and one of the men willingly paid the €50 fare upfront.
The other man initially refused to get into the taxi with a “black” driver but he was persuaded to take the lift, according to Mr Singh.
After a stop-off at a garage in Ballymun, Mr Singh dropped the two men at Poppintree, where they turned on him without warning.
“The customer sitting in the front ran out and around to my door,” he said.
“He tried opening it but I held it firmly shut and the second man ran around to help his friend open the door. When they couldn’t get it open, one of the men ran back around to the passenger side, picked up a broken bottle from the ground and struck me twice across the forehead. He was shouting ‘Go back to your country’ at me.
“They ran off when they saw the blood. I couldn’t find my phone so I knocked on doors of nearby houses but nobody answered to help me. I went back to my car and found my phone and called the emergency services.”
Mr Singh, who has been living in Ireland for 23 years, was taken to Dublin’s Mater hospital, where he needed 12 stitches to a wound on his forehead.
He has been driving a taxi for more than 10 years in Dublin but is thinking of changing his job because of the attack.
His taxi is still being forensically examined by gardaí and Mr Singh will have to pay for it to be cleaned of blood when it is returned.
“My two teenage children are very scared for me and have made me promise that I’ll never drive a taxi again. I’ll certainly never drive at night but I may have to find another job altogether.
“I’m scared and I’m scared now for my children who will be using public transport when they go to college. Every day there seems to be another story of racist attacks and it seems to be getting worse in recent months.”
The Indian community in Ireland more widely have warned of a growing number of racist incidents. Last month, an Indian man who had recently moved to Ireland to work in the tech sector was beaten, stabbed and stripped by a group of people who falsely accused him of criminal behaviour.
Another Indian man, Dr Santosh Yadav, was reportedly attacked in Clondalkin, Dublin, in late July.
The chairperson of a leading Ireland-India group says he is receiving reports of daily attacks in the Greater Dublin Area and has called on the Government to mount an “immediate and co-ordinated State response”.
The Ireland India Council wrote to Tánaiste Simon Harris and Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan in the wake of the Tallaght attack and believes the same group of assailants may be responsible for four other attacks on the Indian community in recent weeks.
Among measures it is calling for is the formal recognition of the hate crime status, a cross-departmental taskforce on hate crime and youth violence and legislation to hold parents responsible both “financially and criminally” for repeated violent actions of minors in their care.
Prasant Shukla, chairman of the Ireland India Council, said he is receiving at least two calls or emails each day about racial attacks on members of the Indian community living in the Greater Dublin Area.
“Incidents of assault, intimidation or harassment targeting Indian residents in Dublin are happening on the street, on the buses or in residential areas,” he said.
“People are now afraid to step outside during daylight hours. In one particular egregious case, a man’s eyesight was affected. These cases cannot be dismissed or ignored.”
Meanwhile, an Irish-born medical registrar said he was left “stunned and upset” after a group of children hurled racial slurs at him as he left a shopping complex last week.
Dr Taimoor Salman estimates children as young as 10 years old shouted “Mr Curry Man” in an exaggerated accent at him.
The incident occurred after 9pm on Thursday evening as Dr Salman dropped into Blackcastle Shopping Centre in Navan, Co Meath, to pick up a few groceries on his way home from work at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, Co Louth.
One boy did impersonations of Apu, the Indian shopkeeper in The Simpsons. “I just left. I didn’t say anything more, as they were children,” he said.
“I was stunned and upset. I have seen racial abuse and throwaway remarks first hand to me and my colleagues at the hospital but I would never expect this from children who are generally very accepting of other nationalities.
“There seems to be a horrible pack mentality and this incident was insidious.”
Dr Salman was born in Ireland, where his father trained and practised as a surgeon and worked in Our Lady’s Hospital in Navan before moving the family to work in the UK and Saudi Arabia.
“I lived in Navan and went to primary school here and have nothing but good memories of the town as a child. I never experienced any racism here.
“That’s part of the reason I came back to live here with my wife and young daughter in 2017 and after I began working in the hospital in Drogheda.”
Dr Salman, whose parents were born in Pakistan, believes that the streets of Navan have become too dangerous for him to walk at night.
“This wave of hatred to people of colour is quite recent and increasingly more open and brash. I’ve been back in Ireland for 15 years. In 2017, it was a peaceful and safe place and I could walk anywhere at any time without fear. Now it is too unsafe and I would only go to crowded places.”
