Victim M Mera Devi of Moirang in Manipur's Bishnupur district was walking alone towards her residence when a speeding car hit her from behind at the crossing near the Iskcon Mandir area in Pune on January 31, said her brother, Ibungo, who, too, works in Pune. Mera was pursuing a short-term computer course in Pune, he added.
The driver and occupants of the car fled the scene without stopping to attend to the injured girl. However, two witnesses recorded the registration number of the vehicle, Ibungo said, adding that his sister succumbed to her injuries at a nearby hospital the same day.
Following a complaint by the girl's family, police later arrested the driver and the owner of the vehicle, he said. "The vehicle's owner and driver have so far not even bothered to apologize or express regret over the accident in which my sister died," Ibungo said.
On the other hand, Women Action for Development (WAD), an NGO in Manipur, sent a memorandum to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday, urging him to take necessary measures to ensure safety and security of northeastern people living in New Delhi in the wake of recent assaults on natives of the region there.
On January 29, some shopkeepers in New Delhi's Lajpar Nagar market fatally assaulted Arunachal student Nido Tania following an altercation, while two Manipuri girls were beaten up by local goons at Kotla Mubarakpur area in the capital on January 25.
Terming the recent assaults on people from the northeast as "systematic and intentional" racial attacks, the WAD memo sent on Tuesday said the incidents clearly indicated that NE people are not secure outside the region.
Saying that the brutal assault on the two Manipuri girls by gangsters is not the first case of its kind, the WAD memo added that Delhi police's attitude when the girls tried to file an FIR at Kotla Mubarakpur PS and their detaining them for about nine hours was highly condemnable. Had Delhi police taken such cases seriously, the recent cases could have been avoided, the memo added.