Violent protest erupted in West Delhi’s Tilak Nagar, India on Sunday after a 43-year-old Nigerian national, Leohand Lyeanyi, who was allegedly assaulted by some police officials died at Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) hospital.
An eyewitness had claimed Lyeanyi died because of a lathi injury inflicted on him by some police personnel.
Commonly used in South Asia, Lathi is a long, heavy iron-bound bamboo stick used as a weapon, especially by the police.
SaharaReporters gathered that the protesters (mainly Nigerians) broke glasses at the hospital.
They also attacked officials of the High Commission of Nigeria led by a consular officer, Mr. I. Jacob, who had come to meet them.
They accused the officials of supporting the killing of Lyeanyi by the India police.
“The Indian police called the representatives of the Nigerian High Commission because there is no ambassador yet.
“When he came with other officials, he started blaming Nigerians in front of the India police, he was supporting the killing of the innocent man, instead of asking for the CCTV footage and maybe the video that was recorded by the Indian man. Nigeria is not helping us in this country. We don’t have an Embassy,” an eyewitness told SaharaReporters.
SaharaReporters had earlier reported how Lyeanyi, who was on his way to pick his brother from the airport, was allegedly killed by police officers.
“Yesterday, this young man that the policemen killed went to a lady’s birthday, and he was expecting his brother to arrive in India that morning. So, he went to the birthday party because most people saw him at the event. He wanted to spend time there so that before morning, he would go to the airport to pick up his brother.
“So, he left the birthday venue in the morning and went to the airport. On his way out, those policemen arrested him. When he was arrested, they found some money in his possession, and they wanted to take that money from him by force. He didn’t allow them to take the money so he was hit in the head. When this thing was happening, one Indian man was there videoing what was going on, so when they hit him, the guy fell down and died.
“We (Africans) asked them to give us the CCTV footage because there was CCTV camera there, but they removed the camera. The Indian guy that has the video coverage of what happened there, they took the video from him. Now, Africans started shouting because the man that was killed was a gentle man. We started shouting black lives matter,” another eyewitness had told SaharaReporters.
The India police, however, gave an entirely different account of the incident.
