Ruparelia Group Managing Director Rajiv Ruparelia has spoken out about what he says was a “racial attack” incident by police officers this morning.
Son to Ruparelia Group founder Sudhir Ruparelia, Rajiv who is nursing severe wounds says the attacks were meted on him by counter terrorism police officers during a morning walk near his home in Kololo.
Rajiv says that while taking his dogs for a walk, he saw a vehicle racing up at a terrific speed and wanted to inquire from them why they were driving at a high speed on a residential road.
” I stopped to tell them that it was not safe for any body to ride 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”.
“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 in 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 office officers in the car. They got out and started beating me”.
“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.”
“Immediately the dogs saw that I was being beaten badly by the officers with sticks and gun butts and others were pushing me and 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.”