With North-Easterners fleeing back home, the repercussions on city life have been plenty.
Restaurants, which employ a large number of young people from the North-East, are now saddled with a huge shortage of manpower, forcing some to even down shutters in some parts of the city.
The priority for restaurateurs is to instill a sense of calm and normalcy among the population. “There are about fifteen people working at our restaurant”, said the captain at Chung’s, a Chinese restaurant that has been on Cunningham Road for nearly two decades now. “About five have gone back home, but since we still have about 10 people, we are trying to make do”.
“From a business point of view, we have a promise to keep to our customers, but the situation itself is very distressing”, said Mr Arjun Sajnani, owner of Sunny’s.
“We have a lot of North-Eastern people working here and I have tried to reassure them at every stage that their safety is paramount, not just to me, but to the entire city”.
At Chung Wah, one of the oldest Chinese restaurants in the city, about half the North-Eastern employees have decided to leave the city.
“We have about nine boys working here and five have gone home”, said Laurence, the captain. “Everybody is scared and we can’t stop them. If they want to go, we have no choice but to let them go”, he said.