Sushma Swaraj apologises to Manipuri girl after Delhi immigration officer’s racial slur

New Delhi, 11 Jul 2016: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Sunday took note of a Facebook post by Manipuri girl Monika Khangembam in which she had alleged that an immigration officer at Delhi’s IGI airport ‘humiliated’ her by asking her about her nationality.

 

The officer, according to her post, repeatedly kept asking her questions to test her ‘knowledge’ about the country and even told her that ‘she did not look like an Indian’.

 

 

Swaraj tweeted that while the Immigration Department doesn’t come under her ministry, she would take up the matter with Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

 

On Sunday night, Swaraj tweeted: “Monika Khangembam – I am sorry to know this. Immigration is not with me. I will speak to my senior colleague Shri @rajnathsingh ji to sensitise Immigration officials at the airport.”

 

There have been many other instances in past where north-easterners living in different parts of the country had to face racial discrimination. In January 2014, a teenage student from Arunachal Pradesh Nido Taniam was beaten to death by shopkeepers in Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar market over an altercation which started when the men made fun of his hairstyle.