Rachhpal Singh, 29, has lived in Portugal for six years. He's legal, works, and pays taxes. On October 5th, he was attacked by a group of men, some of whom wore neo-Nazi 1143 t-shirts, at the Aveiras service station on the A1 highway. He hasn't yet been contacted by the authorities and only wants to recover his stolen phone.
"A year ago, racism started to increase significantly. Before, when we went for a walk in a park or on the street, people were nice. Now there's a lot of racism," Rachhpal Singh, the 29-year-old immigrant who was attacked at the Aveiras service station, on the Lisbon-Porto route, while taking a break from work, told VISÃO by a group of men who attacked him and told him he shouldn't be in our country.
“Will André Ventura work in agriculture?”
A member of the Sikh community, it's easy to see Rachhpal Singh's background, given the turban he wears on his head. But during his first six years here, he doesn't recall this ever being a problem. The problems, he says, began a year ago. And Rachhpal even takes the opportunity to ask a question to the politician who first questioned the presence of immigrants in Portugal. "Is André Ventura going to work in agriculture?" he asks.
When he still didn't speak the language – now he speaks Portuguese without difficulty – the only work he found was in agriculture. "I worked in agriculture for three years. I never saw a young Portuguese person there. Only older ones. Young Portuguese people don't want to work in agriculture. They just want to be in the office. But in the office, nothing is produced to eat," he says.
Afterward, Rachhpal Singh still worked in a factory, but now he's finally in a workshop, the job he had in India. About to become a father, he just wants to work and would like to explain to those who fear Indians that "Indian immigrants aren't bad" and that Sikhs "have a good history, they like to help everyone, they don't cause problems."
Rachhpal Singh was far from imagining he could get into trouble just for stopping at a service station. He initially thought the men who sent him to his hometown were "playing games." Soon, however, the conversation escalated and escalated into a beating. Five days later, he had to return to the hospital. He can now walk, but he still has a lot of pain.
Cameras and phones can lead to attackers
Everything is attested in the medical report made at the hospital where he went after the attack and Rachhpal believes that everything was also recorded on the video surveillance cameras at the gas station, especially because “it wasn't dark, it was still daylight, around six in the evening”.
Despite this, and the fact that his phone has an application that allows him to track his location (one hour after the attack he received a notification saying that the device was on the A8 towards Leiria), he has not yet been called by the authorities nor has he heard that the suspects may have already been identified.
He took the initiative to go to the GNR (National Republican Guard) without anyone calling him, but they told him the complaint had been filed and that he should wait. Carolina Furtado Freitas, who along with her boyfriend testified, had also not been contacted again by early Thursday afternoon.
An official GNR source told VISÃO that “the facts were reported to the Alenquer Judicial Court”.