Following two violent killings in the Greater Lisbon area, Bangladeshi community leader Taslim Rana has sent out an appeal to shop-keeping nationals not to ‘take on’ robbers and raiders.
“I appeal to the community not to resist assaults, and wherever possible, to shorten the opening hours of shops”, he said, during a visit to Costa da Caparica where 31-year-old Mohammed Shamim Bhai, lost his life ensuring that a man armed with a knife did not steal his delivery bicycle.
Bhai’s determination did save his bicycle, but he paid for it with his life – leaving behind a wife and baby daughter.
The whole story was a tragedy: Bhai died in the street, yet his body lay where it had fallen all through the night (before an ambulance was ‘available’ to collect it).
Taslim Rana has told Correio da Manhã that Bhai’s body will be buried in Portugal, while the Bangladeshi community will be paying for the funeral, and helping support the dead man’s wife and 10-month-old child.
Similar actions will have taken place in the first murder in July of a Bangladeshi national who was shot in the chest after refusing entry to two youths into his shop in Feijó as he was closing it.
After Mahabubul Alam’s murder, fellow Bangladeshis formed a human chain outside the Ministry of Interior Administration, requesting ‘security and justice’.
Taslim Rana said at the time: “Now they have killed one person, but for two years there have been many problems, with immigrants being tortured in several places, and there have been several complaints. This is negligence on the part of the authorities.”
Both the first murder, and the latest, are being investigated by PJ police of Setúbal, says CM.
Source: Correio da Manhã
