Melbourne’s Indian community was out in force yesterday to protest violent assaults that have left one student with severe burns and another fighting for his life in hospital.
More than 1,000 marched through the center of Australia’s second-biggest city.
Sravan Kumar Theerthala, 25, was stabbed with a screwdriver a week ago. On Thursday, another Indian student, Rajesh Kumar, suffered burns in what police suspect was a gasoline bomb attack on his Sydney home.
PHOTO: AFP
The spate of attacks have hurt bilateral relations.
Last month, Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan refused an honorary doctorate offered by the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane.
“I mean no disrespect to the institution that honors me, but under the present circumstances, where citizens of my own country are subjected to such acts of inhuman horror, my conscience does not permit me to accept this decoration from a country that perpetrates such indignity to my fellow countrymen,” the actor said.
On Friday, Melbourne police arrested five teenagers over the assaults and charged one of them with attempted murder.
Indian students represent about 18 percent of foreign students in Australia. Police say they are overrepresented as victims of crime not because of racism but because they often work late at night in convenience stores and gas stations.
India expressed its concern to Australia’s high commissioner in Delhi and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is believed to have raised the issue with Australian counterpart Kevin Rudd.
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