An altercation with a shopkeeper in National Market in Bengaluru landed a Nigerian woman in hospital in Malleswaram after the police restrained her. The woman was sedated in the hospital after she reportedly turned violent and created a ruckus.
The woman, Mariam, said to be in her 20s, had stopped at a shop in the electronics market on Monday afternoon with an unidentified man. She had entered a mobile phone store where the shopkeeper allegedly did not attend to her. She banged the glass shelf to gain his attention, but the shopkeeper asked her to refrain from it. She repeated the action and the glass broke, wounding her, the Hindu reported.
An altercation ensued with multiple shopkeepers in the area. The Upparpet police was alerted of the situation.
However, the woman was not pacified when the police tried to talk to her, following which she was tied with a rope. The duo was then taken to the KC General Hospital in Malleswaram for a medical test, but the woman reportedly turned violent when told to get out of the auto they were travelling in.
"She was attacking everyone who approached her. Later, when she was arguing with the police, someone came from behind and threw a bed sheet over her. Then she was sedated," a hospital staff told the Hindu. The woman was later taken to the emergency ward in National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS).
The two hospitals confirmed that force was used only to subdue her and she would be undergoing tests on Tuesday.
The incident comes only weeks after the Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj pacified African nations' envoys over the death of a Congolese man in New Delhi. The incident had resulted in the envoys threatening to boycott the "Africa Day" celebrations in New Delhi on May 25. The incident had raised eyebrows and grabbed media attention, requiring Swaraj to deploy Minister of State for External Affairs Gen VK Singh to promise the African Heads of Missions he would be meeting them once every quarter.
Apart from the attack on the Congolese man, there has been a series of crimes involving Africans in Bengaluru. In a horrific incident, a 21-year-old Tanzanian woman was stripped and paraded naked by a mob on Hessaraghatta Road in January. A month later, the Bengaluru Police had registered cases against African students for violence.
