Student mob in India heckles visiting S. Korean women mistaken for Christian missionaries
By Bryan Ke
A group of South Korean women was allegedly harassed by a mob of Indian students and accused of being Christian missionaries.
The incident reportedly occurred on Saturday at Chaudhary Charan Singh University (CCSU) in the Indian city of Meerut while the women were visiting the university.
In a 33-second video of the incident, which has become widely shared on Twitter, a man who appears to be the mob’s leader can be heard heckling the women.
“Who is with you? … What is the purpose of your visit? … There is only one god ‘Ram.’ Others do not exist. These are Christian missionaries who want to come here. This is wrong,” the man says, according to The Indian Express.
Meerut police responded to the situation and escorted the visitors to their hotel, according to reports.
An officer told The Indian Express that the women were doing internships in Delhi and decided to visit Meerut after one of their Indian friends told them to explore the city and visit CCSU. Authorities said that the women left India for South Korea on Sunday.
“Some foreign girls had come to visit the university. Some youths deliberately asked them about their religion and made a video. Some people wrongly spread this video that they are propagating religion. This is totally wrong,” they wrote, according to The Indian Express.
While speaking to The Times of India, CCSU professor Beerpal Singh, who serves as the school’s chief proctor, said that what happened to the women was “an unfortunate incident,” adding, “Wardens have been instructed to speak to students at hostels while police will soon conduct mass sensitization of students.”
However, CCSU registrar Dhirendra Kumar told The Indian Express that the university has not received any complaints about the matter.
“If any student or union files a complaint in this regard, then we will respond to that. It is not yet known that who are those students or outsiders. If police ask us anything during investigation, we will reply.”
According to The Times of India, another video of the incident purportedly exists. In the clip, one of the women can be heard “narrating the incident in broken Hindi (which they said they learn from their Indian friends),” allegedly saying, “A man approached us and said he wanted to become a Christian. I told him we have to go but he and others followed us and kept on repeating the same question.”
A First Information Report (FIR) has been lodged against “unknown” CCSU students.
The FIR reportedly noted that the accused students had “indulged in negative propaganda, misbehavior and dissemination of wrong information by twisting facts.”
The students are being investigated under the Indian Penal Code section 153-A, which punishes a person for “promoting enmity between different groups on the grounds of religion, race and caste,” among others.
Related stories:
Share this Article
Share this Article
