An Indian-origin couple has shared their account of surviving a brutal knife attack in Sydney, Australia, on Saturday. Shoi Ghoshal and her husband Debashis Chakrabarty were present at the Westfield shopping center in Bondi Junction during the incident.
Ghoshal recounted to the BBC how they, along with around 20 to 25 others, sought refuge in a backroom and utilized cardboard boxes to create a barricade for safety.
“We went into a backroom, a storeroom, and used boxes to barricade ourselves in,” Ghoshal said, reported news agency PTI.
“It was just beyond horrible. It plays on your mind that you could have been one of the victims. We are grateful we are safe and our thoughts are with those who have suffered. It is terrible for their families,” she told the BBC.
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Ghoshal shared that they got to know of the situation as “people were saying someone is stabbing rampantly”. She disclosed that the group they were sheltering with contacted the police, who provided updates on the situation and instructed them to “stay there, stay calm.” She added that they were subsequently evacuated through the mall’s emergency exit.
During the tragic attack, four women and one man lost their lives at the scene, with a fifth woman succumbing to her injuries at a hospital. Additionally, eight individuals are currently receiving medical treatment for their injuries at various hospitals across Sydney.
The assailant, identified as 40-year-old Joel Cauchi, was fatally shot by a police officer. NSW Assistant Police Commissioner Anthony Cooke informed the media during a press conference on Sunday that Cauchi had been dealing with mental health issues.
“We are continuing to work through the profiling of the offender but very clearly to us at this stage, it would appear that this is related to the mental health of the individual involved,” Cooke said.
“There is still, to this point… no information we have received, no evidence we have recovered, no intelligence that we have gathered that would suggest that this was driven by any particular motivation – ideology or otherwise,” he added.
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