Days after a Congolese national was allegedly beaten to death in south Delhi's Vasant Kunj area, police have so far not been able to track down and arrest the third accused involved in the murder.
While the prime accused, Mobin Saifi, was arrested a day after the incident and the other, Prakash, was arrested two days ago, the third accused, Mukesh, is still at large, giving a hard time to police team searching him across states.
Mukesh has so far been traced at Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, following which police teams were rushed there but they failed to track him down, an official privy to the investigation said.
Mukesh was earlier arrested in a case of cheating and became friends with Saifi in Tihar prison last year. Saifi himself was arrested earlier in cases of criminal assault and molestation.
India today assured African countries of safety of their nationals and tried to persuade their envoys to attend an ICCR-hosted Africa Day event here tomorrow.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her junior minister V K Singh went into damage-control mode after the African Heads of Missions (HoMs) sought deferment of the event, expressing outrage over the recent killing and demanded steps against "racism and Afro-phobia".
Swaraj said she has also asked Lt Governor of Delhi Najeeb Jung to take necessary steps and ensure that the case of murder of Oliver is tried by a fast track court.
The External Affairs Ministry, in a statement, said Swaraj was personally monitoring the matter and assured the African envoys that safety and security of their nationals will be ensured.
The victim, M K Oliver (23), was a French teacher at a private institute in Delhi. While was returning from a friend's house in south Delhi's Vasant Kunj area on Friday night, he was allegedly beaten to death by three youths.
While Oliver's friend and other African nationals in the area who rushed to his rescue alleged that the attack on Oliver took place on racial lines, senior police officials denied the allegations and claimed that this was not an incident of hate crime.
The fight between Olivier and the group broke out over hiring an auto-rickshaw, police had said.
