Rajnath Singh should step in to ensure safety of North-Eastern people: Congress

NEW DELHI: Congress today sought Home Minister Rajnath Singh's personal intervention in ensuring safety of people from North-Eastern states living in Delhi and demanded speedy investigation into death of a Manipuri youth two days back in a suspected case of road-rage.

Delhi Congress Chief Arvinder Singh Lovely, in a letter to Singh, also demanded that the Home Minister give specific instruction to police to take "concrete steps" like deploying special forces in specific localities to improve security for the students from North-East.

The letter by the DPCC chief came amid outrage among North-East community over the killing of 29-year-old Akha Salouni who was allegedly beaten to death by a group of five men in a suspected case of road rage in Kotla Mubarakpur in the wee hours of Monday.

"We urged the Home Minister to give personal attention to the issue and take all necessary steps to dispel security concerns among the people from the North East living in Delhi," senior leader and DPCC Chief Spokesperson Mukesh Sharma said.

He said if concrete steps for safety of North Eastern students are not taken, then Congress will start an agitation

Accusing the police of not taking incidents of attacks on North-Eastern students seriously, Sharma said guilty must be handed out strict punishment and measures like deployment of special forces in areas inhibited by students from the region should be considered urgently.

He claimed such attacks, having alleged racial overtones, have affected the tourism industry in the national capital to a great extent and the Centre must take immediate steps to contain them.

The Delhi Police reports to the Home Ministry. In the letter, Lovely said if police had taken strict action against former Delhi Minister and AAP leader Somnath Bharti for alleged "racial abuse" of a number of women from certain African countries, then similar offenses would have come down.

Various groups of NE community in Delhi often complain about racial abuse in Delhi.

Sharma said anyone involved in racial abuse must be dealt with strictly so that such incidents do not affect the image of the city

Police have so far arrested four persons in connection with death of Salouni.