An Indian-owned business that was due to open on Belfast’s Shankill Road has been destroyed after a former gospel hall was set ablaze in the early hours of Saturday. The building, empty for five years and being converted into an Indian supermarket, was totally gutted in what police are treating as a racially motivated arson attack.
For the owner, the fire did more than wreck a property. He said he has been left with nothing, and that the site represented his life savings. He described the aftermath as financially and emotionally draining, with his family also hit by the loss. The damage was caused by deliberate ignition to the roof, the Fire Service said, leaving the building beyond repair before the shop ever opened.
That is why the case has moved quickly from a local blaze to a hate crime investigation. The former gospel hall had stood empty for years before being bought by business people who intended to bring an Indian supermarket to the area. The owner said he chose the site because it was simply a building for sale in the city, not because of anything to do with the Shankill itself.
He also said he had started to feel people’s reactions and aggressive behaviour a few weeks before the attack, a detail that now sits uneasily beside the official response. A PSNI spokesperson said the building had been bought by legitimate business people who would have brought jobs to the local community, and said police would provide the victims with an enhanced level of supervision, investigation and support.
What happened on Saturday morning has left an unanswered question hanging over the case: who set the fire, and why did a plan for jobs and trade end with a gutted shell on one of Belfast’s best-known roads? For now, police are treating it as deliberate, and the owners are left trying to rebuild after their first day of trading never came.
