Bengaluru: Refusing to harp on the issue of racism, Tanzanian envoy and High Commissioner in India, John W.H. Kijazi, who arrived in the city on Friday to meet African students in the backdrop of the recent brutal attack on a Tanzanian girl student here, said it was time to move forward.
“I don’t want to delve too much into racism. You media people are too interested in it. We are not here to discuss the issue of racism,” he asserted, speaking to reporters. Mr Kijazi had remarked in Delhi that “the girl was attacked because she was black like the guy who caused the accident.”
But taking a more conciliatory stand now, he said, “We believe that the local communities can live in harmony. We must look at the future and build confidence on both sides. We understand that friction between communities exists everywhere and we need to work together to institute a system where locals and students can interact more often. If we don’t do that, the friction will continue.”
He also had a message for the African community in Bengaluru: “Follow the law of the land. Live in harmony with its people. And respect leadership of the locals.”
Besides Mr Kijazi ,officials from the Ministry of External Affairs and Second Secretary immigration, Zambian High Commission, Mwitumwa Namunda Lubinda arrived in Bengaluru Friday afternoon to meet the students and representatives of the police and government. They met Home Minister, D. G. Parameshwar, who promised to hold peace committee meetings with locals and the African community and said all colleges would have to submit details of their foreign students to the government.
Also present at the meeting in Vikas Soudha were IG-DGP, Om Prakash and city police commissioner, N.S. Megharikh, who gave a report on the lynching of the Tanza-nian student by an angry mob after a speeding car driven by another African student ran over a local woman, killing her.
