Nigerian tied, thrashed by mob for theft' in Delhi

New Delhi: Trouble may well be brewing for India again after a lapse of six months after reports that a Nigerian man was brutally thrashed by a mob in a locality in south Delhi last month. Videos of the beating surfaced on TV channels on Monday. The African missions in the Capital may again take up the matter with New Delhi strongly if past precedence is anything to go by.

It may be recalled that after an attack on Nigerian students in UP’s Greater Noida area near Delhi in March this year, the heads of several African missions in India had six months ago launched a fierce verbal attack on the Indian Government, accusing it of failing to take any “known, sufficient and visible” deterrent action against what they termed were “xenophobic and racial” attacks on Africans, claiming that these “reprehensible events” were “not sufficiently condemned by the Indian authorities”.

In a strongly-worded statement six months ago, the envoys, who had held a meeting on March 31, said then that they had “reviewed the previous incidents that have taken place in the past and concluded that no known, sufficient and visible deterring measures were taken by the Government of India”. 

But more worryingly for India back then, the African diplomats had said they “agreed to take further actions including the call for an investigation by the Human Rights Council, and also to comprehensively report the matter to the African Union Commission”.