Delhi Police chief assures security for northeastern Indians living in national capital

In the wake of the recent killing of a 24-year-old girl from Mizoram, the Police Commissioner of Delhi, B S Bassi, has assured security for people hailing from northeastern India living in the national capital.

This was the third attack on people from the northeastern region in recent months.. Earlier, a student from Manipur was attacked in Bangalore for not speaking the regional language, and on Thursday, two youths from Nagaland state were brutally beaten up by miscreants in Gurgaon on the outskirts of Delhi.

Bassi said, "What we have done is we have ensured that every police office and every police station is sensitised about the need to ensure protection of vulnerable communities, which include women, children, those who hail from northeast, senior citizens, that if they face any problem and when they approach the police station, utmost help is given and their problems are redressed."

On Friday, angry protesters shouted slogans and demanded immediate implementation of an anti racial discrimination law.

National Security Advisor Ajit Doval said on Saturday that India needs to build a sense of security among the citizens to tackle the situation of racial demarcation.

"This is very disgraceful. It should not have happened. We should all go into the depth of the reasons why it happened. What can be done to prevent it and what is there that we can bring about a change in the attitude, in the mindset, in the thinking of the people and also of the civil society which could respond to it very strongly," said Doval.

Meanwhile, the Chief Minister of Mizoram, Lal Thanhawla, said, that repeated racial attacks on people from the northeast in other parts of the country might lead to spread of communalism and rise of secessionism in the region.

"We, the people, belong to the Mongolians and we are located in the northeastern region. Besides, some other tribes are scattered in various parts of the country. Unless people realise this, we cannot expect oneness. Now, outside people think that northeasterners are not Indians," said Thanhawla in Guwahati.

In January this year, a student from Arunachal Pradesh, Nido Taniam, was beaten to death at a busy market in New Delhi after he got into a brawl with local shopkeepers while reacting to a verbal racial slur and taunts on his hair colour.

People from India's northeast have always voiced their concern against wide-scale discrimination meted out to hapless youngsters going to other cities in search of better opportunities for education and career.

In July, it was reported that a couple from the northeast was attacked by four men in Gurgaon.

And the crimes are not just limited to citizens from the northeast of the country..

Africans in the city have also been targeted 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 a metro train, raising patriotic slogans,and even the police had not bothered to protect them.