Hyderabad: Amid the nationwide unrest in the US over the death of Geroge Floyd, president of Telugu Association of North America Jay Thalluri urged Indians not to worry about racial discrimination.
Talking to Etv Bharat, Thalluri said, "George Floyd was brutally murdered by four police officers in Minneapolis. It is a very, very unfortunate incident. These four police officers choked him to death when he was screaming for help saying that 'I can't breathe', several times. So, it caused a big turmoil in the US and there is a movement called 'I can't breathe' protest movement all over the US."
"Also, some of the people started looting the shops all over the US, in almost 50 cities. Because of COVID, all the shops are closed and they have taken this as an advantage and started looting these shops. Now, the federal government has deployed military all over the US and all the cities are under curfew right now from evening 7 O'clock to morning 5 O'clock."
"But, I see it as an isolated event, I don't see it as racial discrimination. Because others have nothing to do with this. Four police officers are involved and it's their bad conduct. They killed him on the road," he added.
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He said, "We can't attribute to everyone. Unfortunately, there were several incidents before. But they are also isolated events like Eric Garner got killed in the same way by police. And, all these caused big turmoil in the US, but Indians are nothing to worry about this. Even though there are some shops owned by Indians looted by these people, but at the same time, they need not worry about this. Because they not even targeted Indians anywhere. It happened in the 80s once. In 2001, after the 9/11 incident, we got little worry and little scare, but there was no racial discrimination anywhere against Indians. So, there is nothing to worry about this."
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George Floyd died last week after he was pinned to the pavement by a white police officer in Minneapolis who put his knee on the handcuffed black man’s neck until he stopped breathing. His death set off protests that spread across America around the world. Nations around the world joined a 'Black Lives Matter' protests, chanting 'I can’t breathe'.
