Notwithstanding the extreme summer heat, a large number of people from the northeast living in Delhi took to the streets and spent at least 24 hours at the Malaviya Nagar police station, protesting ‘racial tagging’ after the death of Reingamphi Awungshi and demanding justice.

Awungshi, a 26-year-old from Chuithui village of Manipur’s Ukhrul district who worked in a spa company, was found dead on May 29 in her rented room in Chirag Delhi. Her body was lying in a pool of blood with multiple injuries: her nose was bitten off, a leg bore a large cut mark, her eyelids were scratched.

And yet police concluded it was suicide. What about the wounds? Police concluded they were posthumous and caused by rodents. Moreover, they had not lodged an FIR even 24 hours later.

Protesters allege that police tampered with evidence in the room, and the suicide theory also restricted the scope of post-mortem.

Students and youngsters from the northeast, the victim’s friends and well-wishers, say this is nothing but another case of police apathy coupled with racial prejudice. Binalakshmi Nepram says, “We have been told by SHO Vijay Pal that these girls from the northeast work in spas and that is why such incidents take place.”

Relatives and friends of Reingamphi suspect she was raped and murdered but police were covering up the crime. They allege that a brother-in-law of the landlord used to harass the woman and had made frequent attempts to gain her acquaintance despite her disapproval.

It was the landlord who first noticed the body when he peeped through the ventilator above the door. He informed police who broke open the door and found the body. However, the backdoor of the room was found open. Police should have noted this, but apparently did not.

It was this cumulative police apathy that brought hundreds of northeast students and others for a protest on the day after the incident – first at the AIIMS, where the post mortem was conducted and the victim’s relatives refused to receive the body, and later the Malviya Nagar police station where they asked police to lodge an FIR under section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

A large crowd refused to go away and spent the night outside the police station. It was only the next day, on the afternoon of May 31, that police lodged an FIR – but under Section 306 (abetment of suicide). Also, the FIR disregarded the preliminary post-mortem report, which did not mention the cause of her death.

So, the protesters continued their demonstration till the evening of June 1 when assistance commissioner of police (ACP) SS Gill finally assured them that section 302 was added to the FIR.

Meanwhile, some local residents of the locality in Chirag Delhi allegedly threatened that those from the northeast here would face consequences if any local boy was picked up by police.

The incident and the protest once again reignited memories of humiliation over the mysterious deaths of Richard Loitam, Dana Sangma and the racial assaults that led to the mass exodus from Bangalore in 2012.

It is also apparent from this case that the May 10, 2012 home ministry advisory on racial discrimination and profiling of the northeast peoples in the metros seems to have been ignored by the law enforcing agencies at the ground level.