Sydney knife attack: Indian-origin couple recall how they survived

An Indian-origin couple have recounted how they survived the horrific knife attack in Australia’s Sydney on Saturday. Shoi Ghoshal and her husband Debashis Chakrabarty were at the Westfield shopping centre at Bondi Junction when the attack happened.

Ghoshal told the BBC that they hid themselves along with 20 to 25 people other people, in a backroom and used cardboard boxes to barricade for protection.

“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.

Ghoshal shared that they got to know of the situation as “people were saying someone is stabbing rampantly”. She revealed that the group they were hiding with, made calls to the police who relayed to them what was happening and told them to “stay there, stay calm.” She shared that they were later evacuated through the emergency exit of the mall.

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In the horrific attack, four women and one man were killed at the scene, while a fifth woman died from her injuries at a hospital. Meanwhile, eight people are being treated for their injuries at hospitals around Sydney.

The attacker, identified as 40-year-old Joel Cauchi, was shot dead by a police officer. NSW Assistant Police Commissioner Anthony Cooke told reporters at a media conference on Sunday that Cauchi suffered from some 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.