Two Indian students assaulted in Sydney

August 10th, 2009 MELBOURNE/INDORE - Two more Indian students were separately assaulted by a group of men in Australia. Gaurav Kakkar, a student of a hairdressing course, was attacked by a group of men on Friday when he was talking to his family in Punjab's Ferozpur from a local telephone booth.

July 29th, 2009 SYDNEY - An Indian journalist, who was working undercover in Australia to expose an education and migration scam and was assaulted over the weekend, has said her attacker "looked like an Indian person". The reporter, a 28-year-old long-time resident of Australia, told The Australian Wednesday: "My attacker looked like an Indian person and I was threatened in Hindi." She was attacked in an inner-city Sydney street Saturday afternoon when a man wearing a turban came at her with an "almighty elbow to the right shoulder", the report said.

July 27th, 2009 SYDNEY - Police Monday raided the Sydney office of a migration agent they believe is exploiting Indians who come to study in Australia. The raid followed claims on national television that a young Indian reporter posing as a student to expose scams had been assaulted in Sydney.

July 27th, 2009 MELBOURNE - An Indian journalist, who was working undercover to expose migration and education scams in Australia, was assaulted over the weekend. The scribe was attacked when she was working on a report for the Four Corners programme, ABC News online reported Monday.

June 12th, 2009 MELBOURNE - In yet another attack on Indians in Australia, a 22-year-old student was allegedly assaulted by a teenager in Adelaide's busy Rundle Mall. According to the police, the attack took place on Thursday.

June 11th, 2009 SYDNEY - Sydney Police have charged another man for carrying a weapon and participating in a third successive night of protests by Indian students in the Harris Park area of Sydney, even as Indian community leaders called for an end to the protests. The man was charged for carrying a piece of timber found in his car during a search, the Sydney Morning Herald quoted a police spokeswoman, as saying.

June 7th, 2009 MELBOURNE - In another attack on Indians in Australia, a car belonging to an Indian student was torched in Melbourne Saturday night by suspected drug addicts. While the police have ruled out a racial motive, the student has claimed it was a racial attack.

June 6th, 2009 SYDNEY - A prominent member of Sydney's Indian community has dismissed as "entirely futile" a planned rally here on Sunday to highlight assaults on Indian students. Dr Yadu Singh is urging people not to attend, saying it will cause a lot of inconvenience and backfire on the Indian community.

June 1st, 2009 SYDNEY - Authorities in various Australian universities should arrange housing Indian students in safe areas, at least for the first six months, an expat group formed in the wake of a spate of attacks on Indian students here and in Melbourne said Monday. Yadu Singh, coordinator of the newly formed Community Committee on Indian Students' Issues, also asked the students to have health and emergency insurance.

June 1st, 2009 SYDNEY - Indian students in Australia should have their own ombudsman to whom they can go in times of trouble and the universities that admit them should arrange their accommodation for the first six months, says a committee formed after a spate of attacks on Indian students here and in Melbourne. Asserting that "Australia is not a racist country", committee coordinator Yadu Singh held: "Most of the attacks are what we call `opportunistic attacks' and due to the impression of the criminal elements about our students being the easy target for various reasons".

May 31st, 2009 MELBOURNE - Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith has termed the attacks on Indian students a "problem" and assured that the government would do everything to prevent further assaults. "We have a particular current problem with Indian students," Smith told Network Ten.

May 30th, 2009 SYDNEY - There have been at least 20 incidents of "curry bashing" in Sydney in the past month, but most attacks on Indian students went unreported out of fear, a community leader has revealed. Yadu Singh, a cardiologist, said violent attacks against Indian people are on the rise in Sydney.

May 29th, 2009 BANGALORE - The Australian government Friday assured India it will protect Indian students from racial attacks in Melbourne and bring the culprits of recent attacks to justice, Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna said here.

May 29th, 2009 SYDNEY - The Indian Government has been forced to take steps to assure the safety of Indian students in Australia after a series of attacks on them, a community leader has said. Dr. Yadu Singh said there had been at least 20 bashings of Indian students in Sydney in the last month alone, but most went unreported out of fear.

May 29th, 2009 MELBOURNE - An Indian student sustained burn injuries after a petrol bomb was thrown into his apartment in Sydney, said an Indian community leader. This incident took the number of such assaults in Australia to four in the past three weeks.