“The menace of illegal sale of narcotics and psychotropic substances in the State is a serious issue and is deep-rooted. Over the last few years, drug peddling has grown drastically as more number of persons from Africa are coming to the State and entering the trade,” the Home Minister told  BJP member Capt. Ganesh Karnik in the Legislative Council, reports The Hindu.

He said this while talking about the measures taken by the government to check the increasing drug mafia, especially in educational hubs of the state such Bengaluru, Mangaluru, Mysuru, and Manipal which have a considerable number of foreign students.

In the past few years, there have been several cases where people from African nations were subject to racially motivated attacks. In February 2016, a Tanzanian woman was dragged out of a car, beaten and stripped by a mob in Bengaluru. The incident sparked an outrage across the country with questions being raised against racist sentiments in the state.However, the home minister then clearly denied it being a racist incident and called it an ‘accident’.

An India Today report says that 6 cases of racism against people of African nations were reported in the first two months in 2016.

(Feature image source: PTI)