Australian police launched a major murder investigation yesterday after a three-year-old Indian boy’s body was found dumped by a Melbourne roadside, threatening to cast a fresh shadow over ties.
Victoria State Premier John Brumby said he found the killing of Gurshan Singh, who was visiting from Punjab in northern India, “personally distressing,” but urged people not to presume any motive.
“What has occurred is an unthinkable tragedy. It’s deeply, deeply distressing,” Brumby told reporters. “There are no visible signs of the cause of death at this stage ... but I think it’s very important that no one jumps to conclusions.”
Singh disappeared from a suburban house at about 1pm on Thursday while his mother was taking a shower. His body was found about six hours later some 30km away, not far from the city’s airport.
Detective Inspector Steve Clark said the parents were “particularly upset” and were seeing grief counselors. The boy, whose mother was studying in Australia, had been in the country for about six weeks.
His death comes as Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith seeks to smooth over relations with India, a major export market, after a series of alleged race attacks, including the killing of an Indian student in Melbourne in January.
Smith, the latest in a series of top officials to visit India in recent months, met Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday and assured him “that the Australian government was taking the issue of Indian student safety seriously.”
“Prime Minister Singh said he appreciated the Australian government’s efforts to address this issue,” the foreign minister said in a statement.
Smith had earlier acknowledged that some of the attacks, which prompted street protests last year, were “racist,” following a series of denials by senior officials and police.
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