Shops torched in anti-terror protests in central Turkey were targeted: Owners

A number of local business owners of the stores torched in the Central Anatolian province of K?r?ehir during nationwide anti-terror protests in early September have said the perpetrators who carried out the attacks against the shops had specified their targets in advance, daily Hürriyet has reported.

The perpetrators walked the streets of K?r?ehir for about seven hours with a list of the stores they had specified to set ablaze, said Sait Ak?ll?, a bookstore owner whose shop was one of some 32 shops, as well as the Peoples' Democratic Party's (HDP) building, set alight in K?r?ehir.

"It was a deliberate act. They burned shops on the list, walking the streets. The targets were those of Kurdish origin," Ak?ll? said. "They wanted to burn us alive. Four other people were along with me. We rushed upstairs."

Ak?ll? said 28 residents of the apartment building right above Ak?ll?'s bookstore were stuck inside the building surrounded by flames and they were only rescued by police forces and firefighters at the last minute.

HDP K?r?ehir provincial head Demet Resulo?lu said there was no response from police after she reported a group was gathering in front of the party's building.

"I called the police over the phone after the group gathered [outside the HDP building in K?r?ehir]. I asked them to take measures, saying there was going to be an attack [on the building], but no measures were taken," Resulo?lu said.

"We thought we were going to die," said Sezai Öztürk, a waiter at the Diyarbak?r Dessert House, who was trapped along with four others inside the shop at the time of the attack.

Öztürk said the perpetrators attacked from outside the front door. 

"They smashed the front glass of the shop. We had to go...