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Indian set ablaze in Melbourne
A 29-year-old Indian man in Melbourne was set on fire early Saturday morning by four unidentified people in the latest attack on the community in Australia.
A 29-year-old Indian man in Melbourne was set on fire early Saturday morning by four unidentified people in the latest attack on the community in Australia.
Jaspreet Singh had dropped his wife home and was parking his car when he was attacked. He suffered 20 per cent burns.
The city police have said it is “highly unlikely” the attack was racially motivated.
The attack occurred on the day the body of Nitin Garg, a 21-year-old graduate student in Melbourne, arrived in India. Garg was stabbed to death exactly a week earlier while he was on his way to a part-time job in a restaurant.
A string of such incidents has begun to cast a shadow on
relations between India and Australia. In Delhi, Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi expressed disappointment at the attack. Ravi told reporters, “The government there is acting after the incident. I want to say loudly: take
preventive action on anti-social elements. There is so much resentment among Indians and in the media.”
A cartoon in India’s Mail Today showing an Australian policeman as a member of the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan has agitated the Australian
government. Australian Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard condemned it as “deeply
offensive”.
The Ministry of External Affairs subsequently advised the media to exercise restraint in reporting on the issue as it could affect ties with Australia.
The Australian government is lobbying to admit India into the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, according to what that country’s federal trade minister Simon Crean told The Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday.
inputs from HTC, delhi
