'Even Africa is not safe': Union Minister on Congolese student's murder

New Delhi: Just when the Government seemed to have succeeded in pacifying angry African envoys by persuading them to attend the government’s Africa Day celebrations on Thursday following the murder of a Congolese student in Delhi last week, Union Culture minister Mahesh Sharma on Friday put the government in a spot by saying that Africa too was unsafe.

The minister’s comment now is bound to further result in infuriating the Africans at a time when vice-president Hamid Ansari is set to visit North Africa and Prime Minister Modi too is likely to visit southern Africa in the coming months.

Mr. Sharma had attracted controversy in the past as well for some of his previous utterances. Terming the killing of a Congolese national in the capital as unfortunate, Mr. Sharma said that even African countries are not safe.

“India is a large country and such incidents will give a bad name to India. It is an unfortunate incident. However, even Africa is not safe,” Mr. Sharma was quoted by a news agency adding, “Such incidents happen in other parts of the world too.” Mr. Sharma narrated how he had to cut down his morning and evening walks during a visit to South Africa because of safety concerns, and said that it is unfair to paint India as an unsafe country.

“When I went to South Africa, I was stopped from going for a morning walk by the hotel people citing security reasons. My post- dinner walk was also dropped for the same reasons. It’s not fair to say that India is unsafe,” said the minister.

Sharma added that the tourism ministry has introduced measures to ensure safety of foreign nationals in the country. “The tourism ministry has introduced a helpline no 1363 for foreign nationals who visit India. We also issue certain do's and don'ts for them here,” said the minister.