Indian family in UK faces racist attacks
Sani, a nurse from Kerala, said her whole family was living in fear. The back gate of their house was set on fire three months ago.
Mathew Joseph, the husband of a nurse from Kerala, was brutally attacked by a group of racist youths in Pallion in north England.
Joseph, who works at the local McDonald's, was getting tools from his car outside his home when the gang approached him on last Friday, shouting racist taunts, reports said.
The group threw beer at him before knocking him to the ground, and kicked him in the face, breaking his nose as he lay helpless outside the gates of his house.
The police were called but the teenage gang of seven or eight scattered.
His wife Sani, a nurse in the Sunderland Royal Hospital, said the whole family was living in fear. The back gate of their house was set on fire three months ago.
"We came for a better future for our children, but now we're just scared," Sani said.
"He was going to get some tools and there were about seven or eight youngsters, all about 14 or 15-years-old, standing at the corner of the street," she said. "When they saw Mathew they shouted 'you black b*****d' and threw a beer can at him.
"He tried to get into his car, but by that time they were all around him. He was trying to get the car door opened, but they just pushed him down and kicked him in the nose.
"Mathew then tried to run away, but they pulled him back. By that time somebody had phoned the police and they came within five minutes. The youths just ran off."
"We can't live like this," Sani said.
The couple hails from Kerala. Sani, 42, came to Sunderland in January 2004 from Dubai to work as a nurse at the Sunderland Royal Hospital. Mathew joined her in the summer of 2004. They have two daughters, Arunya, 12, and Arsha, 8.
A spokesman for Northumbria Police said a 15-year-old Sunderland youth had been questioned in connection with the attack but had been released on police bail while inquiries continue.
Siddique Miah, chairman of the Bangladeshi Centre in Hendon, said: "I'm deeply shocked by this incident and my heart goes out to the man who suffered this beating.
"I don't know why these kinds of incidents are happening at the moment, but it's not right."
Pallion councillor Paul Watson, who deals with social inclusion issues on the council's cabinet, said: "This is completely and utterly unacceptable. Any attack of this kind is abhorrent and we need to stamp it out."
