NEW DELHI: The question as to whether Indians are racists happened to dominate the social media as well as the prime-time TV shows in the country. That is after a Tanzania student was attacked by an Indian mob at the start of the week.
According to a report submitted to the police by the 21-year old Tanzania student from Bangalore City in Southern India, she was forced to get out of her car by a mob on Sunday night who then set it ablaze. The mob went ahead to beat her, strip and molest her before they paraded her naked.
All this happened in the presence of a police constable. The constable did not bother to move on to help her out in as the mob continued with the attack.
The business management student came across the unfortunate incident in the Ganapathinagar neighborhood. It occurred thirty minutes after a drunken Sudanese driver knocked down an Indian woman after which she died. The residents got angry in the process and set the car to fire. The Sudanese student was beaten and later on got lucky to flee.
Various residents were still in the streets when the Tanzania student and her friends drove by. The residents, on seeing another African student car, became angered and set upon it. They forced them out of the car and thrashed all of them.
Bosco Kaweesi, advisor to All Africans Students’ Union, said that the mob overpowered the girl and thus stripped her naked. As she tried to get into the bus, the passengers did not let her in as they pushed her outside. The auto-rickshaw was also not kind to her as they did not take her. In all that up and down running, she had no clothes.
The neighborhood has several African students who have rented houses there and go for studies in the nearby colleges.
A question was thus raised as to whether India is racial. That was bearing in mind that the actions of the mob was driven by her race.
Sushma Swaraj, India’s Foreign Minister, responded to the incident via a tweet. She said that they were deeply pained and ashamed by the happening. She also included that the local government had been asked to see to it that all foreign students are kept safe. They have to provide security and safety to foreign students and also strongly punish the culprits.
This was not the first incident involving an assault to African students in the Indian cities.
In 2014, a local lawmaker alleged that four Nigerian women were involved in drug and prostitution racket. Even with these baseless allegations, the mob proceeded to attack the women.
In the year 2013, several people at the beach destination in Goa raised signs that were racist in their wording.
Police Commissioner for Bangalore said that they will not rest till the culprits are arrested. He said the people involved are yet to be identified.
On the same matters of the Tanzania student attack, Rahul Gandhi asked for a report from the Karnataka government.
@The Washington Post
