Jinja, Uganda | URN | Police in Kiira region is investigating circumstances under which leaflets were dropped in Jinja city in the Eastern Region of Uganda warning of an attack on businesses owned by Indians.
The leaflets which were directing Indians to either pay a minimum of five million shillings or risk being evicted from Uganda are believed to have been dropped near their shops on Wednesday 19, May 2021 morning.
“You have one week to pay us a minimum of five million shillings or risk being forcefully thrown out of our country, stand warned,” reads one of the leaflets in part.
Roy Mandov, a member of the Indian Association says that for close to three years now, his colleagues have been subjected to numerous threats, however, the police have not done much to prosecute the suspects.
Mandov says that between 2019 and 2020, unidentified individuals used to steal their number plates and demand victims to pay a minimum of one million shillings before releasing the same to them, but the vice slowly disappeared.
Vincent Ssemaganda, the Aldina village chairperson which is host to several Indian businesses says that several Indians have complained of being physically attacked by unknown individuals.
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“Several Indians have complained to me on how their children are openly bullied, physically assaulted, their items forcefully grabbed in broad daylight, however, most of them never engage police authorities to further investigate these complaints which frustrate chances of prosecution,” he says.
The Kiira region police spokesperson Abbey Ngako says that detectives have been dispatched at the scene of the crime and efforts of reviewing footage from some of the neighbouring privately owned CCTV cameras are underway to ascertain the identities of the suspects.
