Issue of racial attacks on Indians in US exaggerated: Shalabh Kumar

Shalabh Kumar, founder of the Republican Hindu Coalition that rallied behind Donald Trump during the US presidential election, on Saturday said reports on the racial attacks in the US were exaggerated.

“Let the investigation agencies do their job,” Kumar said at the India Today Conclave here on growing racial attacks in the US.

He was responding to questions after making the key-note address on ‘Make India-America Great Again, Why Trump will be good for the world’.

Kumar said the Kansas attack (in which an Indian techie was killed) in the US was confirmed by the FBI as a racial attack.

“As the confirmation came, Trump was supposed to attend an important meeting. But after the meeting, he did respond to the incident of attack and condemned racial discrimination,” he added.

“At our RHC, we daily get 10 calls on an average on racial abuse and most of them are fake,” the Indian-American entrepreneur said.

He said when Barack Obama had become the US president for the first time, he too had jumped to a similar conclusion when an African-American was attacked and later, he was criticised for his actions.

On the US administration’s take on the H1B visa and its impact on Indian techies travelling to that country, Kumar said Trump was only trying to implement the existing rules and regulations.

“The visa was introduced many years ago for doctors and highly qualified engineers. Over a period of time, there have been some cases of abusing the visa facility.

“It was the Obama administration that had tried to make the H1B visa rules more stringent and not Trump. It was rejected by the Congress and the visa is the same.

“And, there is one Republican senator who has moved a bill to increase the number of H1B visa allocation to Indians. It shows that the new government is pro-India,” he said.

On India’s cross-border terrorism issue with Pakistan and Trump’s stand on it, Kumar said, “President Donald Trump does not tolerate a double face on terrorism. Like he has talked against the ISIS, he has also expressed his objections towards cross-border terrorism.”