Safety of African students, ensures Sushma Swaraj

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, May 30, 2016, DHNS: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Sunday spoke to Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Delhi Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung on the safety of African students in Delhi.

The move comes in the wake of rising attacks on African students in the national capital. “I have spoken to Raj Nath Singh and Lt Governor of Delhi regarding the attack on African nationals in South Delhi on Saturday. They assured me that the culprits will be arrested soon and sensitisation campaign will be launched in areas where African nationals reside (sic),” she tweeted.

Sushma asked her deputy Gen V K Singh and Secretary (economic relations) Amar Sinha in the Ministry of External Affairs to meet African students who announced holding a demonstration at Jantar Mantar on Tuesday.

Rajnath Singh with Delhi Police Commissioner and other officials met the community members in Chhattarpur village in the southern fringes of the capital, where the recent attack took place.

The Delhi Police also arrested several individuals believed to have been associated with Saturday’s attack and with the killing of a Congolese student.

The junior foreign minister, however, blamed the media for “blowing out of proportion” issues surrounding the attack on African nationals in Rajpur Khurd (near Chhattarpur), which Singh described as a “minor scuffle”.

“Had detailed discussion with Delhi Police and found that media blowing up minor scuffle as attack on African nationals in Rajpur Khurd. Why is media doing this? As responsible citizens, let us question them and their motives,” Singh tweeted, questioning the media’s motive.

The murder of a Congolese student in South Delhi’s Vasant Kunj snowballed into a diplomatic crisis as African nations threatened to pull out of a government-sponsored event to celebrate the Africa Day on May 26. They relented later only after receiving personal assurance from Sushma.

The killing was followed by an attack on a Nigerian student in Telangana. The Delhi Police registered three cases of physical assault and criminal intimidation of African nationals in South Delhi. Two women — one from Uganda and the other from South Africa — and two Nigerian men in South Delhi had filed complaints of physical assault and criminal intimidation.