By IANS
New Delhi : The external affairs ministry has formed a crisis management group to prevent targeting of Indians in foreign countries as it recently happened in Uganda where an Indian was killed in racial violence.
"The ministry has formed a crisis management group, which gets activated on the basis of inputs received from our missions abroad for providing assistance to Indians wherever they are targeted in large numbers," External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee told the Rajya Sabha Thursday.
Referring to the recent killing of an Indian in racial violence in Uganda last month, the minister said that the government took up the matter with the Ugandan authorities recently and also lodged an immediate request with the country's government for providing protection to Indian nationals in Uganda.
"President of Uganda met Asians in Uganda and assured them that the government of Uganda will ensure that such incidents do not happen again," the minister replied to a question on ethnic violence in Uganda.
Devang Rawal was stoned to death April 12 by a mob that was protesting the move by The Sugar Corporation of Uganda Limited (SCOUL), part of the Indian-owned Mehta group, to expand its sugar estates by clearing the Mabira rainforest – one of Uganda's last remaining patches of natural forest.
Earlier this month, Uganda's Internal Affairs Minister Ruhakana Rugunda came to India and sought to dispel the impression that Indians were targeted in his country on racial grounds.