Seven arrested over violent clashes in and
around Noida amid simmering resentment towards Africans
By Michael Safi
 |
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An African woman walks
through a street in New Delhi. There are about
50,000 Nigerians living
in India, say consular officials.
Photograph: Saurabh
Das/AP
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India’s foreign affairs minister has
condemned “deplorable” race riots targeting African students near Delhi this
week that put two men in hospital and led to seven arrests.
The victims included a Kenyan woman who
alleges she was pulled from a rickshaw on Wednesday morning and beaten by a
group of men.
Police say at least 600 people were involved
in the mob violence on Monday in and around Noida, a satellite city to the east
of Delhi.
Resentment towards Africans, thousands of
whom study in Indian universities, has simmered in India in the past few years,
fuelled partly by cultural differences and the involvement of a small
proportion of people from the continent in the Delhi drug trade.
A number of opinion pieces in the Indian
media have also attributed the attacks to racist attitudes towards foreigners
from African countries.
Monday’s violence was triggered by the death
of Manish Khari, 19, who reportedly died of a heart attack brought on by a drug
overdose.
Nigerians living in the neighbourhood were
blamed by some locals, including Khari’s family, for selling the man the
narcotics. Five Nigerian men were arrested but released the next day.
There were protests by African student groups
on Sunday and counter-demonstrations by locals calling for justice in the case.
One, a candlelight vigil calling for the prosecution of the five Nigerian men,
turned violent on Monday night.
At least four Nigerian men were attacked by
the crowd, some of whom carried sticks, including Amalcima Amarawa and his
brother Endurance, who told the Indian Express they fled into a shopping centre
to escape.
A group of at least 10 people found them
inside the mall and savagely beat the pair in an attack that was recorded on a
smartphone, broadcast and shared across India on Tuesday.
Sushma Swaraj, the Indian external affairs
minister, called the violence “deplorable” and urged the new chief minister of
Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath, to conduct a fair investigation.
African students were advised by police to
stay indoors temporarily, while Indian foreign affairs officials said they were
in contact with the Nigerian high commission over the incident.
“The government is committed to ensuring
safety and security of all foreigners in India,” the minister of external
affairs said. “People from Africa, including students and youth, remain our
valued partners.”
There are about 50,000 Nigerians living in
India, consular officials have said.
Violence against Africans living in Delhi had
diplomatic implications last year after a 29-year-old Congolese man was stoned
to death in south Delhi, reportedly after arguing with a group of locals over a
rickshaw.
Three more attacks on African expats in the
days that followed prompted envoys from the continent to threaten to boycott
Africa Day ceremonies held each year by the Indian government.
They eventually agreed to attend but the
ructions led Swaraj to announce a “sensitisation programme to reiterate that
such incidents against foreign nationals embarrass the country”.
Last year in Bangalore, another hub for
African students, a 21-year-old woman from Tanzania was stripped and assaulted
by a mob in retaliation for a Sudanese student accidentally running over a
local woman.
@ The Guardian
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By
Shashank Bengali
Indian mobs near the nation’s capital have
attacked and wounded at least nine university students from African countries
since Sunday in a spasm of racial violence that a senior official called
“deplorable.”
The attacks – which began after an Indian
family accused five Nigerian men of kidnapping and killing their teenage son –
prompted the Assn. of African Students in India to warn its members in Greater
Noida, a satellite city of New Delhi, to “remain indoors” to avoid being hurt.
In the latest incident, a 24-year-old Kenyan
woman was hauled out of a taxi and beaten unconscious with sticks by about a
dozen people early Wednesday morning.
The woman regained consciousness and got
herself to a medical clinic in a rickshaw before police brought her to a
hospital, where she was treated and released, said Abdou Ibrahim, a senior
advisor to the students’ association.
The group issued a statement on Facebook
discouraging “any form of retaliation.”
“With regards to food and other daily home
needs that might prompt anyone to go out, we are working towards creating a
system to ensure that supplies [get] across to you all,” it said.
Police in Greater Noida have arrested five
people and booked dozens more for violence as India’s foreign minister urged
authorities in Uttar Pradesh state to carry out an intensive investigation.
In one incident captured on cellphone video,
a mob is seen thrashing and kicking a man as he lies on the ground of a
shopping mall in Greater Noida.
The government is committed to ensuring
safety and security of all foreigners in India,” the Indian ministry of
external affairs said in a statement. “People from Africa, including students
and youth, remain our valued partners.”
Racially motivated attacks against Africans
living in India are nothing new. Last year, a Tanzanian woman was pulled from
her car and beaten in the southern city of Bangalore in an apparent revenge
attack after an Indian woman was killed by a driver believed to be from Sudan.
Drawn by better job and educational prospects
than back home, hundreds of thousands of Africans study or work in India,
despite what they describe as daily, almost shocking racism. Apartment owners
often refuse to rent to them, and many say their skin color makes them the
subject of taunts and occasionally physical violence.
Fair skin is a national obsession in India,
where ads for skin-whitening creams run on the front pages of national
newspapers. Africans also say Indians accuse them of prostitution, drug-dealing
and even cannibalism.
“People are spreading very negative rumors,
and that is why our host community is having some kind of negative image about
Africans living here in India,” Ibrahim said.
The family of the Indian teenager in Greater
Noida said he had died of an overdose of drugs supplied by a group of Nigerian
men. Five Nigerians were held for questioning but released due to a lack of
evidence, police said.