Editor’s note: An earlier version of the post said the boys were from Manipur, when they were from Nagaland. We have updated the post to correct the information and apologise for the error.
In another shameful racist crime in the National Capital region, two youths from Nagaland were beaten up and assaulted by a gang of seven in the Sikanderpur area of Gurgaon.
The attack saw the two boys being brutally beaten up by bats and sticks, reports Times Now. According to the news channel, the attack was clearly racially motivated as the attackers told the two boys, “Tell your North-East people to leave Sikanderpur”, before letting them go. One of the victims also told the channel, “They said that if we were from Manipur, they would kill us.”
The latest case comes even as there were new reports that a 26-year-old engineering student from Manipur was beaten up in Bangalore by a group of men who reportedly abused and then attacked him for not speaking Kannada.
More details on the incident are awaited.
For instance in January, the capital had seen protests over the death of 19-year-old Nido Taniam, son of Arunachal Pradesh Congress MLA Nido Pavitra. Nido was attacked with iron rods by shopkeepers in South Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar market after an altercation. The shopkeepers had allegedly mocked Nido’s hairstyle and he had in turn thrown a stone at the store.
But despite the protests, not much changed as in February itself two Manipuri women were assaulted by men who hurled racist abuses at them in South Delhi’s Kotla Mubarak area.
Then in May a girl from Nagaland who was a law student in Delhi University was molested by another lawyer at a metro station. When she went to court, with three friends, in connection to the case which was being heard, a gang of lawyers beat them up. The mob had threatened her not to pursue the case any further.
In July, it was reported that a couple from the north-east was attacked by four men in Gurgaon.
And the crimes aren’t just limited to North-East citizens. Africans in the city have also been targetted recently. The most visible example of this was seen when a video went viral showing how a lynch mob had attacked a group of African students in the metro, and even the police had not bothered to protect them.
From the long list above and the most recent incident, it is evident that discrimination against people from Northeast and other groups continues unabashedly in India.