Indian students rallied in Melbourne yesterday as Australia scrambled to contain outrage over a wave of attacks that has seen it labeled racist and strained diplomatic relations with New Delhi.What began as a local policing issue in Australia's second-largest city has spiraled into a crisis that prompted talks between Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh on student safety last week.
Students and Indian officials are demanding action after more than 70 assaults on their peers in a year in Melbourne, including at least four in the past fortnight.
Pictures from the hospital bed of a comatose Sravan Kumar Theerthala, who was stabbed with a screwdriver by gatecrashers at a party, were splashed across front pages in India. A teenager faces charges of attempted murder.
"They were saying `Don't touch us you Indians' and `Indians go home' before they got the screwdriver," said Theerthala's friend, Jayasanka Bagpelli.
Another student, Baljinder Singh, told last week how his attackers laughed as he pleaded with them during a robbery at a Melbourne train station. "I was saying to them, `I'm giving you all my money, don't kill me, don't kill me'," said Singh, who was stabbed and left with a 15 centimeter wound to his stomach.
Indian media have dubbed the attacks "curry bashings," a term reportedly used by youths behind the violence in Melbourne's western suburbs, where 30 percent of assault victims are Indian.
It is a grossly disproportionat
e figure in a city of almost four million with an Indian student population of less than 50,000. Police deny any racial element to the attacks, arguing Indian students were often simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan is threatening to snub the offer of an honorary doctorate from an Australian university because of the attacks.
"My conscience is profoundly unsettled at the moment," Bachchan said on his blog.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
