Owner Mehtab Hussian of Sweet Treat, on Lord Street, Palfrey, has been left devastated after flames ripped through his shop.<\/p>\n
Witnesses described seeing a group of men set fire to the shop, while a petrol bomb was reportedly thrown through the window which started minutes after the shop closed at 10pm.<\/p>\n
A BMW parked outside the shop was also torched, while a 78-year-old woman next door had to be rescued by neighbours as the fire broke out.<\/p>\n
Mr Hussain, aged 23, has run Sweet Treat for three years and said he was heartbroken by the attack on the business, which he fears was targeted.<\/p>\n
He told how he returned to see his ‘pride and joy’ consumed by flames.<\/p>\n
Mr Hussain, said: “I closed up at 10pm and went home. I got a phone call saying the shop was on fire. I said, ‘what are you on about the shop’s on fire?’<\/p>\n
“I headed straight back. It was total fire. There were people standing outside and fire in the car and fire in the shop.<\/p>\n
“I was heartbroken. I was in tears thinking why would somebody do this to me?<\/p>\n
“I am a young lad, 23, who has got his own business. Everybody in the community gets along with me.<\/p>\n
“I have had the shop for three years and have had no trouble with anyone.”<\/p>\n
As well as the damage to his business, Mr Hussain said lives were also put at risk.<\/p>\n
“My priority was to get the elderly woman out. I didn’t know she was out when I got there. The scary thing is it could have happened five minutes before I closed.”<\/p>\n
Mohammed Ahmed, 22, whose house backs onto the shop, said: “I was working and had a phone call from my uncle saying the shop next door was on fire.<\/p>\n
“He’s a friend of mine and since it’s been open I have been in to show my love and support.<\/p>\n
“It’s not fair, he has put his heart into it.”<\/p>\n
Police said the suspects had been spotted on CCTV running away from the shop towards Queen Mary Street and have called for anyone with information to come forward.<\/p>\n
The young business owner said he considered giving up on the shop after the attack.<\/p>\n
He said: “My family are saying don’t give up but what’s the point in carrying on?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Owner Mehtab Hussian of Sweet Treat, on Lord Street, Palfrey, has been left devastated after flames ripped through his shop. Witnesses described seeing a group of men set fire to the shop, while a petrol bomb was reportedly thrown through the window which started minutes after the shop closed at 10pm. A BMW parked outside […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,3,112],"tags":[633,748,749],"class_list":["post-25510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-news","category-top-stories","tag-arson-attack","tag-dessert-shop","tag-palfry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}