African envoys to meet MEA officials over vigilante attack, civil society protest Sunday

New Delhi, Jan 18 :

African envoys will meet officials of the external affairs ministry later Saturday to allay their concerns in the wake of the alleged misbehaviour with some African nationals by supporters of a Delhi minister.

The ambassadors of the African countries have been called to South Block in the evening for a meeting following concern expressed by them over the alleged manhandling of some African nationals Thursday in south Delhi’s Khirki Extension after Delhi Law Minister Somnath Bharti alleged they were part of “drug and prostitution den”.

Four women from Uganda have filed a complaint with Delhi Police alleging they were molested by a group of Bharti’s supporters and one of them said she was forced to give a urine sample by the men.

Bharti and cadres of the ruling Aam Admi Party (AAP) had called the police to Khirki Extension in south Delhi past midnight Wednesday to bust a “prostitution and drug racket” of which he had received complaints from his constituents.

According to eyewitnesses, the minister and the party volunteers came in large numbers and tried to barge into a house from which they claimed a “drug and sex ring” was operating. (IANS)

Student bodies to protest Sunday 

Our Delhi correspondent adds : Several student and rights groups including AIPWA, JNUSU, AISA, RYA will stage a sit-in protest against racist violence on Africans in Khidki Village.

In a joint press release these groups said,

“It is ironic that the rape of a Danish woman in Delhi is recognised as violence against a woman – a foreign guest in our country. But the violence and appalling violation of rights to which African woman were subjected isn’t recognised by the Delhi Government as the same – and is even defended in the name of fighting ‘rape tendencies’!

” We cannot forget that an African student, Yannick Nihangaza from Burundi, was brutally attacked in 2012 in Jallandhar, Punjab, going into a coma from which he emerged after nine months.

“There have been growing instances of xenophobia, racism and violence against Africans in Goa and other parts of the country too.

“People from the North East states also experience racist prejudice and violence regularly in Delhi and elsewhere.

“We urgently feel the need to counter the spread of the racist virus in the capital city,” the relase said while appealing to people to join the sit-in protest on Sunday.