The son of a murdered shopkeeper today said his death was "heartbreaking" as he appealed for information to help find whoever killed his father.
Javaid Ali, 48, was stabbed on June 15 in Sunshine Grocers in Green Road, Paisley, Renfrewshire.
He died in the town's Royal Alexandra hospital on June 29.
Today, Abbas Ali, 25, one of his three sons, paid tribute to his father and urged anyone with information about the murder to contact police.
Mr Ali said: "Our family is absolutely devastated at the loss of my father, Javaid Ali.
"He was a wonderful father, husband, son and friend. He meant so much to us and it is heartbreaking to know we will never see or speak to him again.
"I cannot put into words the suffering this has caused our family and it will take a long time for us to come to terms with what has happened.
"As a father, I could not have asked for more. My dad was an exceptionally hard worker and a great provider for our family.
"He always put our needs first and did his best to provide my brothers and I with opportunities that he did not have when he was younger."
Mr Ali described how his father was an integral part of the community and showed "genuine warmth and kindness" towards those who were less fortunate and vulnerable.
He added: "I was fortunate in that if I ever had a problem or an issue, I was able to rely on my dad to simply make things okay.
"Therefore, the brutal manner in which he was taken from us is very difficult to accept. I cannot bear to imagine the pain he might have been in when he was attacked."
More than 60 officers are currently working on the inquiry and have visited 700 homes and taken up to 170 statements so far.
Detectives are still trying to trace a man who was seen walking from the direction of Sunshine Grocers at about 3pm on the day of the incident and a young woman carrying Aldi shopping bags.
She was walking towards Green Road in the direction of the cycle track.
Detective Chief Inspector Duncan Sloan said: "This was a horrendous, vicious and unprovoked attack on a popular and well-respected member of the local community.
"I offer my sympathies to Mr Ali's wife, three sons and wider family who are trying to come to terms with this tragedy.
"We are still following a number of lines of inquiry and keeping an open mind as we try to establish potential motives for the attack.
"I know that Mr Ali was a popular member of that community and I'm appealing for people in that community to come forward."
Police said they will maintain a large presence in the area both to gather information and to reassure any concerned residents.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article