'Can now celebrate Eid with my kids': Delhi fruit seller, looted of mangoes worth Rs 30,000, overwhelmed by donations of over Rs 8 lakh

A fruit seller in north Delhi’s Jagatpuri, who was looted of mangoes worth Rs 30,000 by passers-by amid the COVID-19 lockdown, said he feels ‘overwhelmed’ after receiving over Rs 8 lakh in donations from the public, NDTV reported_._

 “Now I can celebrate Eid with my children,” Phool Mia, 43, told ANI. “This shows humanity is still alive.”

More than a hundred people sent in contributions ranging from a few hundred rupees to thousand of rupees after NDTV shared Phool Mia’s bank account details on social media.

“I am thankful to you. You told my story. I am thankful to everyone who has helped me,” Phool Mia told NDTV. “Those who had to steal, did so. But I am overwhelmed that so many people have helped me.”

A clip of the incident, which went viral on social media, showed a mob filling their helmets and bags with mangoes, jostling with each other to steal from the unattended crates and even filling their hands with fruit and running away.

The behaviour of the Delhi mob amid the coronavirus lockdown, which has seen migrants in large numbers peacefully taking to the streets and highways to walk home hundreds of kilometres, often without food and water in the scorching May heat, provoked outrage on social media and led to an outpouring of sympathy for Phool Mia.

Four men have been arrested on the basis of video footage, police told ANI on Saturday.

Phool Mia filed a complaint on Friday. As per PTI, the incident occurred after a heated argument between the fruit-seller and some rickshaw-pullers on Thursday morning. Phool Mia said he was standing under a tree when a group of rickshaw pullers asked him to leave.

“My stock of mangoes worth Rs 30,000 was kept there. Some persons were fighting with each other fearing which I left the place to avoid any sort of altercation. When I returned, I saw that they were looting the mangoes kept there. There were 50 to 100 people who were involved in this act,” Phool Mia told PTI.

With inputs from agencies