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Theft, Robbery at Jersey City’s India Square Leave Shopkeepers Worried
Business owners Yogesh Patel, Waheed Akbary, and more other experienced a petty theft
HI INDIA NEWS DESK
JERSEY CITY, NJ- A man smashed the front glass door of the Big Bazar supermarket, at Newark Avenue in Jersey City’s India Square neighborhood and crawled inside to steal whatever cash he could find.
The incident, captured on surveillance video, is one of what people in the city’s Indian community say is a growing trend in India Square, a neighborhood wedged between Kennedy Boulevard and Route 1&9 near the Tonnelle Circle.
Talking to The Jersey Journal, Bharat Garate, a supervisor at Big Bazar, said, “They do the robbery, they do the stealing from the shop, everything like this.”
Other shopkeepers in India Square say they’ve also seen an increase in crime ranging from over-the-counter theft, early morning break-ins or armed smash-and-grab robbery that happened at the Sara Jewelry store just 12 hours after the market was burglarized.
Yogesh Patel, who runs a small walk-in store, experienced a petty theft on Tuesday when a person stole a carton of cigarettes over the counter and fled on a bicycle.
Jersey City spokeswoman Kimberly Wallace-Scalcione said there have been two such incidents reported in the area since Nov. — the jewelry store smash-and-grab and the supermarket break-in, and that it “hardly demonstrate(s) a crime wave.”
However, for Waheed Akbary, owner of the robbed Sara jewelry store, the incident was very damaging. Five men robbed the shop and made off with more than half-a-million dollars in jewelry and cash. While Akbary is grateful his workers were not seriously hurt, but without insurance they faced a tough time.
Akbary believes that the reason the Indian Square community is being targeted is because they are an “easy target.” The recent incidents have also prompted calls from Councilman Rich Boggiano to post more cops in the area.