MELBOURNE - The string of racist attacks against Indians has damaged Australia’s image, Victoria province’s Premier John Brumby admitted Wednesday, adding “some of the events of the past few months have damaged our brand and the Australian brand in India”.
The latest assault took place Saturday when four Indian men were brutally assaulted outside a bar in Epping, a suburb of this Victoria capital.
Brumby said he would not comment on the case but any violence, racially motivated or not, was unacceptable.
The premier, who is heading to India next week, said he would meet key Indian officials to discuss the issue and also meet students to encourage them to continue to come to Victoria and study.
“If you look at Victoria as a whole we remain the safest state in Australia in terms of our crime rate,” The Age quoted Brumby as saying.
“Any violence which does occur and any violence which is racially motivated is completely unacceptable … and I’ll keep repeating this message as long as I have to to get the message out there.”
He said the recent spate of racist attacks had damaged Victoria’s image.
“Some of the events of the past few months have damaged our brand and the Australian brand in India and I can only repeat that overall we remain one of the safest places in the world,” he added.
Last weekend, four Indian men were attacked by a group that told the victims “You Indians, just go back to your country”.
Acting Senior Sergeant Glenn Parker, who was one of the officers at the scene, says police acted swiftly, arresting four men and took statements from the four victims.
He says there was no attempt on the part of the police to play down the incident.
The victims say they were bashed by up to 70 people in a car park in High Street at Epping Saturday night.
But the police say there were only four or five offenders, although there were another 15 people making racist comments.
There have been a string of attacks on Indian students since May this year. The attacks have caused an uproar in India.
India’s External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna was assured by Canberra that students from India would be taken care of.
The latest attack takes place after a brief lull in such incidents in which the victims maintain that the assaults were racially motivated.
The brother-in-law of two of the victims, Onkar Singh, told ABC’s AM programme that his relatives have suffered serious injuries.
“Sukhdip got very badly injured in that, and Gurdeep has his jaw broken, and Mukhtair’s (the uncle) shoulder is broken,” he was quoted as saying.
“When the attack happened there was a lot of people, about 70 and they might have run away or something because they can all see the whole car park was full with them.”
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