Businessman Rajiv Ruparelia has spoken out about Friday morning’s incident in which he says he was a subject of racial attack by police officers.
Rajiv who is nursing severe wounds says the attacks on him by counter-terrorism police officers happened near his home in Kololo, a Kampala suburb during a morning walk.
He narrated that on Friday morning, while walking with his dogs, he saw a vehicle racing up at a terrific speed and wanted to inquire from them why they were driving that way on a residential road.
“I stopped to tell them that it was not safe for any body to drive this fast on a residential road. I and my dogs were walking and i asked why an individual must drive this recklessly on a residential road,” Rajiv said.
He added, “I requested in a simple way but an officer angrily said to me that this is not India, this is Uganda. The police officer was not in an identified police vehicle, it was a private car. Based on that i had no idea that this was police.”
“He went on and asked me why i should ask him to slow down, i did not know there were several other officers in the car, they got out and started beating me,” Rajiv continued in this chilling tale.
It’s at this point that Rajiv let the dogs out.
“In the process of beating me, i was no longer able to hold my dogs. If some one is beating you how do you control dogs. I released them and they started running,” he said.
He went on to say, “Immediately the dogs saw that i was being beaten badly by the officers with sticks and gun butts and others were pushing me, they tried to save me. This was a racial attack!
“My dog watcher came to help me and in the process he was also beaten badly and he is now in hospital. As they were leaving, they knocked him with the car but they did not take his life.”
The victim is now in hospital. ” we are hoping he is recovering quickly,” Rajiv added.
