Man dies in India following alleged racial-tinged attack

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http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-man-dies-in-india-following-alleged-racialtinged-attack-20140201,0,5755667.story

Man dies in India following alleged racial-tinged attack
By Hashmat Baktash and Shashank Bengali
February 1, 2014, 12:23 p.m.

NEW DELHI – He was a slight young man, who sported hipster eyeglasses and a wispy moustache. He had dyed his spiky hair blond, but that wasn’t the only thing that made college student Nido Tania stand out in the Indian capital.

Tania was from northeastern India, a narrow strip of territory wedged between China and Myanmar, whose people say they face discrimination here for having “Asian” facial features. When Tania, 20, stopped in a dairy to ask for directions Tuesday afternoon, a shopkeeper’s taunt about his hair color quickly escalated into a violent altercation in which several men thrashed him with sticks and steel rods, friends say.

He died in his bed the next day, succumbing to severe injuries to the chest and brain, according to preliminary medical results provided to his family.

The incident has sparked fresh outrage in New Delhi, which was already reeling from a spate of high-profile rape cases, and has added to a growing sense of insecurity in a capital that is aiming to be a showcase for India’s growing economic might.