New Delhi/ Shillong: Describing harassment of people from the North East by linking them to coronavirus as “racially discriminatory, inconvenient and painful”, the Centre on Monday issued a special advisory asking the chief secretaries and police chiefs of all state governments and Union Territories to take strict action against such elements.
Issuing the order, the Deputy Secretary (NE-II), MHA, RK Pandey, said, “There have been cases where people of North East including the athletes and sportspersons have been harassed by linking them to COVID-19. This is racially discriminatory, inconvenient and painful to them.”
The order requested that all law enforcing agencies in the respective state/UT may be sensitised to take appropriate action in cases of harassment when these are reported.
On March 17, Arunachal (East) MP Tapir Gao had raised the matter during Zero Hour in Parliament and requested the government to issue an advisory to all the states to protect students from the North East who were “facing discrimination to the extent of vacating them from the rented apartments”.
“It is like double coronavirus for students from the North East….they are asked to vacate hostels and rented accommodation after being subjected to racial comments. This is a conspiracy to cut off the North East from the rest of India through racial discrimination,” the BJP MP had said.
“Some incidents of racial remarks against northeast people have emerged in some parts of India in the wake of #Coronavirus due to cultural ignorance, prejudice mindset & lack of understanding. Matter discussed with NE Division, MHA. Strict advisory is being issued to the States,” Union Minister for Sports & Youth Affairs Kiren Rijiju tweeted.
Meanwhile, the North East Students’ Organisation (NESO) has condemned the recurring incidents of violence and discrimination due to physical appearance meted out to the indigenous peoples from the Northeastern states who are studying and working in other states.
Reports of violent attacks and racial discrimination against the students and public from the region have been on the rise from various parts of mainland India after the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, the NESO stated.
“This is very disheartening considering that the world at large is striving together to restrict the spread of deadly COVID-19. The humiliations they have to undergo apart from the mental distress of staying away from their love and dear ones, do not augur well for the diverse country that India is”, the NESO stated.
The NESO appealed to the Centre to put in place all necessary arrangements in order to ensure the physical and emotional wellbeing of the North East community in various parts of the country.
Further, NESO suggested that the respective chief ministers of the Northeastern states should actively liaise with their counterparts in various states in order to ensure that the perpetrators of hate crimes are brought to book and that future occurrences of such unwanted incidents are completely avoided.
The BJP Meghalaya unit and others had also made similar complaints against racial profiling of people from the North East.
