The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
‘We were dragged, hit. Would people have stood silently if we were one of them?’
ON MONDAY evening, 25-yearold Imran was returning to his rented accommodation in Alpha I after meeting his sister. It was around 7.15 pm, when the auto rickshaw he had hired stopped at Pari Chowk in Greater Noida. “I got off the auto rickshaw and seconds later a mob attacked me. They beat me up with sticks. I don’t know what they were saying. I lost consciousness for sometime and vaguely remember how police brought me to the hospital,” Imran says.
Imran is among at least four Nigerian nationals who were attacked allegedly by a mob at Pari Chowk and the adjoining Ansal Plaza mall.
On Tuesday afternoon, Imran sat at the Medical Superintendent’s office at Kailash Hospital in Greater Noida trying to get in touch with his friends. With his both hands and head wrapped with bandages, Imran was trying to trace his college identity documents. “I don’t know if I brought them to the hospital. I remember coming here with money but I am not sure if my identity documents are at the hospital,” Imran tells two policemen and the hospital staff.
Minutes later, he walks barefoot to another section of the hospital to collect some belongings. As he talks about losing his shoes during the attack, a broken watch with a brown belt has a sticker carrying his name is handed to him. A dazed Imran asks, “It is mine but I don’t want it. What will I do with it?”
On the fifth floor of the hospital, a group of African nationals walk in and out of a room located at the end of a corridor. Three students who were attacked on Monday evening sit inside. While hospital authorities maintained that 23-year-old Precious Amalcima — a BA Political Science student at Noida International University — was treated and discharged on Monday night, he refuses to leave his brother’s side.
Amalcimaandhis21-year-old brother Endurance Amarawa — both residents of Swarna Nagari area of Greater Noida and students of Noida International University — were in Pari Chowk area when a candlelight vigil by locals to demand the arrest of five Nigerian students in connection with the death of a Class XII student turned violent. “There were four of us. We saw a large violent mobandwerushedtoansalplaza mall for safety,” says Amarawa.
As they took shelter in the shopping mall, hiding there for a few minutes, they believed that the violence had abated. The two brothers were about to leave the mall when they were attacked by at least ten people on the ground floor of Ansal Plaza. A video shot on a mobile phone shows chairs and metal plastic bins being used at the mall to beat them.
“I did not do anything. Why did they attack us?” asks Imran.
Portions of two banners, which wanted Nigerians to be thrown out of Greater Noida, are tied to the railings of the Pari Chowk roundabout, while at Ansal Plaza mall business continues as usual. Private security personnel wearing black uniforms, however, are stationed on various floor silently monitoring mall visitors. While one security guard maintains that he was not on duty Monday evening, a shop employee is more forthcoming. “It happened outside this store. A huge mob had gathered and they were beating up an African. Some people sought refuge here. You never know what an angry mob can do. We were scared that we would be assaulted if we intervened,” said an employee at a gadgets store, on the condition of anonymity.
Students suffering injuries by the same mob wonder why no one came forward to help them. “Weweredragged,hitwithsticks, chairs. Our clothes were smeared with blood. There were many people who were standing there and watching. Would they have stood their silently if we were one of them?” Imran asks.