Bengaluru auto drivers assault Congolese

The spurt in the number of attacks on African students in the recent past indicates increasing animosity between Africans and local residents in the city. Though the police has held peace meetings and requested local residents to maintain harmony with the foreigners, such attacks keep occurring in north and north-eastern parts of Bengaluru.

A 25-year-old Congolese student was allegedly beaten up and stoned by an autorickshaw driver and a few local residents in Hennur over a trivial row. The African student paid a fare of Rs 30 instead of Rs 50 that was demanded by the auto driver as he took the auto from Kammanahalli Main Road to Hennur Cross which is less than 2.5 km. When he approached the police, it asked for the registration number of the auto, which he did not note down, and sent him off.

Ngoy Katuntu Tresor, a BBA student of Teacher’s Academy in HBR Layout and a resident of Hennur Cross, had gone to buy bread in Kammanahalli around 8 pm on Monday. “Before I hired the autorickshaw, I had told the driver that I will pay him only Rs 30 as he was demanding Rs 50. I told him that I was aware of the charge,” he said.

“When we reached the Reliance Fresh supermarket at Hennur Cross where I had to get down, I gave him Rs 30 and started walking. But the auto driver followed me and started hurling abuses. He then pushed me around and beat me up,” he said.

“I defended myself and held his hands. I also had to punch him as he was beating me continuously. But a few local residents, who joined the driver, started throwing stones and I had to run for cover,” Tresor said.

Tresor lost Rs 250 he had in his pocket and his phone broke. “A local resident followed me and gave me my phone and its battery,” he said.

When Tresor reached the Hennur police station to lodge a complaint, the policemen asked him for the autorickshaw’s registration number. He told them that he did not make a note of it as he was in a state of shock, thinking that he could meet the same fate of a 29-year-old Congolese man, who was lynched in South Delhi’s Vasant Kunj area in May this year after an argument over hiring an auto-rickshaw. The Hennur police sent him off without registering a complaint.