Volume 15 | Issue 26
Thursday, February 4, 2016
Regina Gurung Parathi Benu A group of African students hid for two days to avoid an angry mob that attacked a Tanzanian student and her friends before torching their car. The group of five lived on potatoes and tomatoes and only emerged when an Indian friend organised transport, after they ran out of water. The African community in the city is living in fear as messages have been circulated telling them they will be attacked in their college campuses and homes on Saturday. One video, which quickly went viral among African students in Bangalore, shows a dead African man on a median in the city. He came off his bike and died after hitting a signpole. Africans fear he was targeted by a mob and forced off the road. Police are investigating the road death, which hap-
pened on Wednesday. The students who sheltered inside a home for two days found themselves in the middle of an outraged community last weekend after a Sudanese national was involved in a car accident which left one local woman dead and her husband injured. That initial accident happened on Sunday, January 31,, at Ganapathi Nagar in Hesaraghatta in greater Bangalore. . The police have said that they have arrested driver Mohammad Ahmad Ismail, a 20yearold Sudanese national. However, locals have said that Micah Pundungu, a second year BBA student at Acharya College, was actually driving the car at the time. They said they had checked his identity card which was lying in his car after the accident. The deceased woman has been named as Shabana Taj. Her husband Sanaullah was injured. Nearly thirty minutes after the accident, a group of African students travelling through the area in a car were stopped and attacked by a mob. A Tanzanian girl was allegedly stripped and assaulted
by a group of people. The girl reached the spot half an hour later with four of her friends and was beaten up by the locals. When she tried to escape by boarding a bus, she was thrown back out by the other passengers, according to reports. The driver of the second vehicle, Micah Pundungu, was badly beaten. The victim is also a second year BBA student at the Acharya Institute of Technology. Lula(name changed), an African student from Acharya Bangalore B-School, was one of the students who hid from the mob., said, “I had gone to a parlour to braid my hair when Stella(name changed), the parlour owner, got a phone call at 9pm warning that the mob had gone crazy attacking Africans. “I was with four of my friends. We were scared to death. We hid there for a whole day.” At 1am on Monday, an Indian friend of hers arranged a cab and we escaped she said. “I was scared to death,” she added. Stella said that she has since moved out of the area. She gave refuge to the five students in her apartment for
Pic Credit : Sourav Mohanty | www.Karntaka.com
Fear grips African students in the city
Acharya College where Tanzanian girl studies two days. “We lived on potatoes and tomatoes and ran out of water. I was too scared to go out. I have now moved out of that place,” she said. Dr Mahesh, the Casualty Officer at the Sapthagiri Hospital where the victims were treat-
ed, said that the girl returned to her hostel the same day. “She came on that day for a check-up with the police and her friends who got beaten up. She had a few injuries which I treated,” he said. He said that the girl is “totally fine”. -contd in page 3
Kid who complained to CM a no show at school Maqsood Maniyar A handicapped student who complained to the chief minister about not being allowed to go to school is not attending classes. Srikanth, 15, who is wheelchair bound, had complained to chief minister Siddaramiah that he wasn’t given admission in Nithyananda School due to his condition. This happened on 17th November, 2015 during the children’s parliament which was held in the Vidhana Soudha. Nithyananda School is in Jigani Village of Anekal Taluk of Bangalore district. Srikanth suffers from muscular dystrophy. He had studied up to 8th standard in a government Kannada school.
CM Siddharamaih at students meet in Vidhan Soudha The government school does not offer education beyond that and he had to switch to a private school. Manjunath, who is himself differently abled and works with the NGO ‘Mobility India’, said that the school resisted Srikanth’s admission. He said: “Initially there was a problem. Authorities at the school were not co-operative.” He added that women and
child development minister, Umashree, wrote to the BEO (block education officer) who is responsible for Jigani village, Ramamurthy urging him to talk to the administration of Nithyananda high school. After the BEO had intervened, the school agreed to admit Srikanth. Headmaster of the school, Ramesh,has denied the charge that his school had
ever refused to admit Srikanth. “Why wouldn’t he approach us directly? What was the need for him to go through the BEO.After all of that, we did give him admission but he hasn’t turned up. “Hi mother has given us the wrong number. Whenever we dial it, we get an ‘out of coverage area’ recorded message. Please come to our school, I’ll show you a living example. Apart from him, we have three other handicapped children who study at our school. Who are we to deny him education?” Ramesh also said that his school would take steps to accommodate differently abled children. Srikanth said that he wasn’t at school but when he was grilled about the headmaster’s claims he conceded that he had been admitted but decided not to go back to school.
He said that it was too late in the academic year and that he wouldn’t be able to catch up. “Exams are not far away and revision has already begun in school. Travelling to school is also an issue because it is quite far away and it is difficult for me to travel in my condition. I’ll rejoin the school in the next academic year” Srikanth said. Srikanth’s father, Narayana Reddy, concedes that it was about more than just admission. “The classroom is on the second floor and it is very difficult for him to attend classes in such a situation. We hope that the school will conduct classes on the ground floor.” Srikanth said that he was granted admission in December. “I enjoyed the Kannada lessons that we were taught in school.” He said.