Global Naga Forum condemns racially motivated assault on Naga woman doctor at AIIMS Gorakhpur, seeks action.
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DIMAPUR — The Global Naga Forum (GNF) has condemned the recent “racially motivated” assault and humiliation of a Naga woman doctor in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh.
In a statement on Friday, the GNF stated that according to multiple print and social media reports, the incident occurred on February 22, when the resident doctor of AIIMS Gorakhpur was harassed near Orion Mall and later followed to Gate No. 2 of the Institute campus.
She was allegedly subjected to racial slurs, sexually derogatory remarks, stalking, and physical molestation.
“That such an incident took place in the vicinity of a premier national medical institution exposes the vulnerability of professionals from the Northeast even within public and institutional spaces,” the forum stated.
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It also stated that there was another recent disturbing incident in Gorakhpur involving a young Naga woman who was racially profiled and intimidated in a public area.
“She was mocked for her appearance, verbally humiliated, and made to feel unsafe solely because of her ethnicity. These incidents are not isolated episodes of misconduct; they reflect a pattern of targeting women from Nagaland and neighbouring states on the basis of their racial identity.
“Beyond Gorakhpur, similar past and recent incidents in other cities leave no room for denying systemic, structural racism against people from the Northeast who do not look and sound like the people in India’s heartland,” the GNF stated.
The forum further cited instances of three women from the Northeast who were racially abused and humiliated in a residential locality in Delhi, as well as the earlier killing of Anjel Chakma, a student from Tripura, stating that these incidents showed how racially motivated hatred could escalate into fatal violence.
It maintained that, taken together, these incidents and others before them revealed a recurring and dangerous pattern of racial hostility faced by Northeast citizens while studying, working, and serving society in mainland India.
Against the backdrop of frequent verbal and physical violence against people from the Northeast region, the GNF expressed serious concern over a video interview in which Nagaland Minister of Tourism & Higher Education, Temjen Imna Along, had publicly argued that what Northeast people faced in India was “discrimination” and not “racism.”
It added that the minister had been contradicted and schooled on the difference between generic discrimination and structural racism in a video released in November 2025 by the Editor-in-Chief of EastMojo.
Supporting the editor’s intervention, the forum stated that when a public representative engaged in public misinformation on an issue of such consequence, as the minister had done, he legitimised the denial of racism against minorities instead of helping to resolve the problem.
It further said that positions on such serious issues, when taken lightly, especially by those in authority, risked emboldening extremist and majoritarian elements in the country who already viewed people from the Northeast as “outsiders.”
The GNF maintained that statements which downplay racism would only encourage Akhand Bharat activists and like-minded groups to continue acts of racial abuse with greater impunity.
It asserted that when students are killed, women were harassed, and professionals attacked because of their ethnicity, one is compelled to question how such realities could be dismissed as mere “discrimination.”
The forum further stated that it is especially dangerous when wrong notions on serious public matters such as racism are articulated in pursuit of political privilege or social-media popularity.
It appealed to the authorities in Uttar Pradesh to immediately arrest the perpetrators involved in the Gorakhpur incidents, publicly identify those responsible, and ensure punishment under the law.
“The Global Naga Forum reiterates that racism against the people of the Northeast is real and a well-documented experience of the victims. Acknowledging it is not divisive; refusing to acknowledge it only allows it to persist,” it added.