Urgent measures must be put in place in Bradford to reassure Asian families worried about gunpoint gold robberies.
Councillor Mohammed Shabbir, who took part in a meeting with police, said he wanted to make sure both police and community safety chiefs “stay on the ball” to prevent any more masked raiders invading people’s homes.
During a full Council meeting this week, he will be calling for an urgent session of the city’s Community Safety Partnership to discuss what he claims is now a “growing and worrying trend” of violent robberies for gold.
The Respect party councillor wants the session to be made an immediate priority so measures can be put in place to reassure the public as soon as possible.
As reported in Saturday’s Telegraph & Argus, the latest incident saw a mum tied up in front of her 16-month-old child and threatened with what is believed to be a gun at her home on Lynfield Drive, Daisy Hill, on Thursday.
Coun Shabbir said: “It is a worry not just in my Heaton ward but across Bradford and we need to keep this issue up for discussion as a way of making sure people are aware of what is happening and what can be done to put a stop to it.
“The police are on the ball  but more can be done through the council and also by families themselves by taking simple precautions such as not flaunting any gold they have and making sure their properties are alarmed. One of the problems is that banks don’t seem to offer safe-box facilities anymore.”
Meanwhile, detectives are continuing to hunt for raiders who burst into Bradford homes in a spate of robberies before Christmas holding householders up at gunpoint before escaping with tens of thousand of pounds of jewellery.
A specialist team is now up and running and Operation Scadlock has been set up in the city to target criminals who commit such crimes.
In one of the previous raids, an 81-year-old grandfather was held at gun-point when raiders ransacked his family’s home in Clayton Road in November taking £45,000 of sentimental jewellery was taken including rings, bracelets and passports.
That robbery came just weeks after a similar raid in Oakleigh Road, Clayton, when armed robbers stole £60,000 of jewellery and herded young children into a front room while they ransacked the house.
Inquiries into those robberies on Oakleigh Road and Clayton Road are ongoing but no arrests have been made.
Anyone with information can contact police on  101, or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.