Violence and attacks against Black people is not a new phenomenon. In the west, recent days have seen massive Black Lives Matter protests. And while these have been echoed to an extent in India, the message behind it does not seem to have resonated with everyone.
Students of the Roorkee Institute of Technology are up in arms over the treatment meted out to one of their classmates recently.
"Diaby Ibrahim and Emmanuel studying at @ritroorkee were beaten, humiliated, and dragged out of the campus in presence of its directors and registrar by local goons," the All India Students Association wrote on its official Twitter handle, sharing a video.
The organisation called it a "clear case of racist attacks on Black students".
" A black student Ibrahim was beaten and thrashed by Institute guards and dragged out of the campus. @cmo_uttarakhand please see that University admin is held accountable and all culprits are arrested," the student body added.
They also posted a video where several individuals can be seen thrashing another person. The AISA attributes this to the same incident. A follow-up tweet adds that the student wasn't being allowed into the campus after he had left it. The police were involved, and Ibrahim was allowed to stay until the threat of the virus abated.
"However, the next morning he was harassed, beaten, and dragged out of the campus. His friend who was trying to save him, was also beaten. The video speaks for itself One can feel the hatred with which these students are beaten up and their fault? Being black?" AISA alleges.
This account has been corroborated by another Twitter user who wrote that he was a fellow student. Taking to Twitter, this user alleged that the student was asked to leave the college immediately after he exited the campus without an 'outpass' and went to buy vegetables. This user incidentally quoted a person named simply as 'tiriwashe' to provide the details.
However, when the individual (identified by the Twitter user as Ibrahim) said that amid the pandemic he had no other place to leave, the security had allegedly called the police and the two had agreed that he would leave the college hostel once the pandemic ended.
"Suddenly today morning This RIT people hired a local puhana people giving them security dresses and beat Ibrahim up and pull him out from the college,'' he added.
Now, Hindustan Times reported that the director of the college, five security guards, registrar and a non-teaching staff member have been arrested in connection with incident.
The college management will soon issue a statement regarding the matter.
