In 2017, when a 19-year-old went missing from home in Greater Noida, a suburb of the Indian capital, locals raided the house of five Nigerian students living a few doors away, accusing them of being cannibals who had eaten the youth. Later the youngster returned in a state of severe intoxication – according to media reports at the time – and, a day later, died in a hospital, allegedly from a drug overdose. His father instigated the police to arrest the Nigerian students and slap murder charges on them for supplying drugs to the boy, charges which proved baseless.
Following the detention of the Nigerians, other African students gathered to protest outside the police station. Their slogans of ‘Black Lives Matter’ and ‘Skin tone is not a crime’ didn’t lead to hashtag wars in the country.
