NEW DELHI: In a suspected racist attack, a student from Arunachal Pradesh, who is also son of an MLA, was allegedly beaten to death by some shopkeepers in the Lajpat Nagar area of south Delhi on Wednesday.
An altercation started after the shopkeepers made fun of Nido’s hairstyle following which the latter was allegedly thrashed.
Nido Tanian, son of a Congress MLA and Parliamentary Secretary in Health and Family Welfare department, died at his home in the Green Park area on Thursday, police said.
The quarrel was stopped after some of the locals intervened. However, condition of Nido, a BA first year student at a private university, suddenly deteriorated following which he died under suspicious circumstances, his relatives said.
“His postmortem has been carried out in AIIMS. The cause of death would be clear only after the autopsy report. There was some altercation he had on Wednesday, we are investigating the case,” a senior police official said.
A youth, claiming to be his cousin, said, “This is surely about racism. Everybody in Delhi discriminates against us based on our looks. We are living in India, but we don’t know whether we are actually living in India or not. Every time we are discriminated against.”
Two shopkeepers have been arrested this evening in the case as police faced flak for alleged inaction. Meanwhile, the Delhi government has also recommended a magisterial inquiry into the incident.
