GUWAHATI: Delhi police has booked a man under Sec 509 of IPC who had spat at a Manipuri woman and called her “corona.”
The incident took place in Vijaynagar area of North Delhi on Sunday.
Netizens have condemned the incident. Some even shared details of the incident on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/Akhucha/status/1241793873187225600
Amid coronavirus outbreak, North Easterners have reported increasing cases of racism against them.
Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju had condemned this kind of behaviour and had sent out on this.
In February, in an open letter, Northeast students at TISS have said that they are being subjected to discrimination due to distinctions in socio-cultural traits and physical features amid coronavirus outbreak that has killed hundreds of people in China and infected thousands.
“In the midst of the ongoing global health crisis due to an outbreak of Coronavirus, purportedly originating in the Wuhan province of China, we have seen a disturbing trend of discrimination and racial profiling across the world towards people of China origin and other Asian nations bearing mongoloid features. It is a grim reminder of inherent racial prejudices and stereotyping of particular peoples based on their physical features and perceived cultural inferiority,” the letter reads.
This also includes name-calling such as “Corona” and “Coronavirus” etc. at various public places, states the letter.
On March 3, two students from the Northeast were attacked by six men in Kamla Nagar, near Delhi University’s North Campus. They were also called “coronavirus.”
“They threw balloons at my friend and me. We had a male friend with us but they threw the balloons only at us, aiming at our private parts. They saw that I had Mongoloid features after I took off my pollution mask. After that they screamed, ‘Aye, coronavirus!’ I was too shocked to react,” one of the women, who studies at Hansraj College, told media.