A student from Assam was assaulted in a central university in Madhya Pradesh, stoking panic among students from the Northeast as the incident comes close on the heels of the death of a Tripura student in a racially motivated attack in Dehradun.
Hiros Jyoti Das, a postgraduate student of economics, was beaten up by five students at the hostel of the Indira Gandhi National Tribal University (IGNTU) in Amarkantak on January 13. Based on a complaint, the university has expelled the accused students — Anurag Pandey, Jatin Singh, Rajnish Tripathi, Vishal Yadav and Utkarsh Singh. An FIR has also been filed against them in a local police station.
A university source said the accused asked Das where he was from and what he was doing at the university. This led to an altercation, which escalated into the assault in which Das suffered injuries to his eyes and nose. The source said the accused made racist comments against Das during the attack.
The public relations officer of IGNTU, Rajnish Tripathi, said the university had set up an inquiry committee. He did not share any more details.
Registrar N.S. Hari Narayan Moorthy could not be contacted on his mobile. The Telegraph had emailed in-charge vice-chancellor Byomakesh Tripathy seeking his comments on the alleged racist slurs hurled at Das and how the institution hoped to deal with such hate crimes. His comments are awaited.
Last month, 24-year-old Tripura student Anjel Chakma died after being stabbed at a market in Dehradun after he objected to being called a “Chinese”.
Lanchenbi Urungpurel, a postgraduate student of Delhi University and the president of the Manipur Students’ Association, said northeastern students faced racist slurs and discrimination on a daily basis in north Indian cities.
"When they object to such comments, they face violent attacks. The police often take a biased stand on these attacks. There are some good police officers, but the general approach is that they do not accept the racial angle. Because of rising incidents of attacks on students from the Northeast and the police's support for the local people, we feel scared to raise our voice,” Urangpurel said.
She said northeastern students were often referred to as "chinkis" and "momos" in public places in Delhi and asked if they were from Thailand or Vietnam.
“There is a feeling of otherness about us. We never felt we were accepted as normal Indians in Delhi. Some people also request to take selfies with us because of our looks. I feel that the NCERT should include content in the textbooks about the northeastern people and their language and culture so that people in other parts of India have some idea about them,” she said.