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Melbourne. –  After a brief lull in racial attacks against Indians in Australia, an Indian, a 31-year old cookery student was stabbed in the stomach by two men after he finished work in a South Yarra bar early this month.

The student who did not wanted to be named underwent an emergency surgery and had a 26-stitches on his punctured bowel after the attack on November 5, according to AAP .

The Indian who was studying cookery in Melbourne has recalled the night he was stabbed in the stomach by two men after he finished work in a South Yarra bar. (more…)

Melbourne:  After a lull in racial attacks against Indians in Australia, a 21-year-old man from the Indian community was brutally assaulted by a group of teenagers with baseball bats after they asked him “Buddy, are you Indian?”

The man, whose name has not yet been revealed,  was walking to Sandown Park rail station here when four teenage boys on bikes approached him, three with baseball bats, police were quoted as saying by local newspaper ‘Dandenong Leader’.

One of them asked him “Buddy, are you Indian?”

Police official Jo Hayden said the man was hit from behind, fell and was kicked while lying on the ground. Two passers-by took him home. (more…)

Melbourne:  An Indian student, who was hospitalised with multiple jaw fractures after being brutally beaten up by a group of six youths here, will not be able to eat for up to five weeks and also cannot talk properly, according to one of his friends.

Bharat Thapar, 24, who was assaulted on Monday night in South Oakleigh, is recuperating in a hospital with plates in his jaws and “bruises all over his body”.
     
Quoting Thapar’s friend Sumeet Khanna, ‘The Age’ reported today that the victim was unable to talk properly after a brutal confrontation with six youths that left him with four fractures in his lower jaw.

Khanna had earlier said that two of his friends, including Thapar, had been driving through the Oakleigh area when they saw another Indian man being abused by a group of youths. (more…)

MELBOURNE.  A young Indian student, Bharat Thapar, 24, has suffered “serious” facial injuries after being brutally attacked by a group of  people in Melbourne – the latest in a series of attacks on Indians in Australia.

Thapar was attacked by a group of six men Monday night after he tried to save another Indian from being thrashed in a Melbourne suburb, his friend Sumeet said.

The incident took place near Carinish Road, in Oakleigh South, said Sumeet.

On Monday night, Thapar was trying to save another Indian, a taxi driver named Ratan,  from being beaten up by six people on the streets of Melbourne. When he tried to intervene, the attackers turned on him.  The policemen who arrived at the scene summoned an ambulance, but let the six assaulters leave the location. (more…)

Sydney:  Two food vans belonging to an Indian restaurant were on Monday destroyed in a blaze, just few days after a nearby community restaurant was set on fire on the Cleveland street in Sydney. Police say that this is not a racial attack and could possibly be due to rivalry between two restaurants.

The food vans were destroyed in the fire which police and fire fighters believe to have been deliberately started. They found the vans belonging to Maya Da Dhaba on Cleveland Street burning at 2.30 am local time.

The fire fighters were able to extinguish the fire quickly but both vans were gutted.

The Police suspect that a “curry war” among several Indian restaurants is heating up in Sydney with two food vans firebombed early this morning.

Police said they are investigating whether the arson attack is an act of retaliation, following reports of Copper Tiffin Restaurant being torched less than a fortnight ago on Cleveland Street, the Daily Telegraph reports.

The Copper Tiffin and the Maya Da Dhaba restaurants are side by side, and local residents say there is a lot of competition between the two outlets..

“We are looking at both incidents and the possibility they are linked,” a police spokesman said.

Police are still searching for two men seen running from near the building, moments before flames began leaping from the Copper Tiffin Restaurant.

Police said last night it appeared an accelerant may have been used to ignite the blaze in the food vans.

Ajay Raj, the owner of Maya Da Dhaba told media he’s shocked at the incident, “We have been here in Surry Hills for the past 11 years and nothing like this has happened. I would like to believe that this does not have any racial undertones. The police has acquired CCTV footage. There was a CCTV camera right above one of the vans that was burnt.  I have myself seen a few seconds of that footage where you can see a guy vaguely (his face cannot be seen properly) throwing something on the van and setting it alight. The detectives are investigating and I am hopeful they will be able to identify the culprits soon”.

The police was now looking at links between this incident and a blaze at another Indian restaurant The Copper Tiffin on July 5. The Copper Tiffin is close to the Maya Da Dhaba. On that occasion two people were seen running from the restaurant as fire engulfed the building.

If the Police are suspecting inter-restaurant competition as a cause of rivalry between the two incidents, then this will lead them nowhere. The Copper Tiffin Restaurant and the Maya da dhaba were running close to each other on Cleveland Street for the last more than ten years. Competition is the basic aspect in any business and is an essential ingredient for success.

Is it possible that there could be a racial angle between the two incidents, since there have been a series of attacks on the Indians residing there?  Only time will tell.

Ravi Matah.

NEW DELHI –   A Gurudwara was allegedly torched by arsonists in Melbourne, placing further strain on diplomatic relations already damaged by a series of racial attacks on Indian students. This  has been termed as an ‘attack on religion’.

A fire suspected of being set with Molotov cocktails inside a Sikh temple under construction in a Melbourne suburb has caused outrage in India.

Someone using an accelerant started the fire that caused major damage at Nanaksar Taath Temple in Cranbourne.

Australian police today said the blaze in a gurudwara here was a “deliberate” act and  an outraged Sikh community called the incident “race-related” and “an attack on Indians”. Detective Senior Constable Paul Stow, in charge of the investigation, said police believed the arson to be a “deliberately lit fire.”    (more…)

The racial attacks on Indians have gone on un-abated with reports  of another Indian being attacked yesterday in Sydney. A 28 year old man had been badly beaten by a group of Australian boys and girls at the Coogee Beach in Sydney. No one else present on the beach came to his rescue. The victim then called the police who arrived at least 40 minutes after the incident took place. The victim had been living in Australia for the past 11 years and was a permanent resident there. 

He had complained of pain in his back, neck and head and was taken to the Hospital for an internal medical check up and X-rays. He said he believed that this attack was unprovoked and  racial in nature.  (more…)

A 21-year-old Indian youth with permanent residency in Australia was fatally stabbed in the abdomen by unidentified assailants in Melbourne on Sunday while on his way to work, the first death in a series of vicious attacks on the members of Indian community.

Nitin Garg was stabbed to death in Melbourne on Saturday. As per TV news reports, he was taken to Royal Melbourne Hospital where he  died later.

He was a part time employee in Hungry Jack’s restaurant.  Garg, had migrated from Punjab and was attacked in a park while he was walking towards the restaurant.

He staggered for nearly 300 meters into the restaurant on the corner of Somerville Road and Geelong Road, West Footscray, about 10 pm local time last night and pleaded for help before collapsing. (more…)

In yet another attack on Indian students in Australia, a 23-year-old youth, a taxi driver, was stabbed in the chest by unidentified assailants in Melbourne on Wednesday, reports Age. The student, who is also a taxi driver, was attacked and left to bleed on a Brunswick West street, police said.

The name of the victim has not so far been revealed by the press. (more…)