India blasts Victoria on violence
The Age
Thursday February 4, 2010
INDIA'S top envoy to Australia has delivered a stinging complaint to Governor-General Quentin Bryce over attacks on Indians in Melbourne, labelling Victoria a state "in denial" over the severity of the problem.High commissioner Sujatha Singh sought the meeting with Ms Bryce in Sydney last Friday as India's frustration with Australian authorities intensifies.Mrs Singh is believed to have told the Governor-General that Australia is not racist but warned of long-term consequences unless more action was taken to prevent attacks.She praised police action in NSW, Queensland and South Australia for tackling racist attacks but said Victoria was taking too long to respond.Citing more than 100 incidents of racist violence against Indians, she told Ms Bryce Victorian authorities were in denial over the scale of the attacks.Mrs Singh will return to Delhi for talks next week amid rising diplomatic tension over attacks on Indian students.Some Indian media outlets say she has been "recalled" because of the controversy surrounding attacks but Government sources deny this.Premier John Brumby yesterday accused the Indian media and some government officials of giving unbalanced versions of attacks.Mr Brumby's comments came after police alleged an Indian man who had claimed he was set on fire in an unprovoked attack had burned himself while setting alight his car for a false insurance claim.The comments also follow revelations an Indian couple have been charged with the murder of an Indian man in NSW."I hope that there is some balance to the debate, some balance to the reporting in India, and certainly to date that balance hasn't been there," Mr Brumby said referring to the alleged false claim over the car fire, and the murder charges.Attacks on Indians in Australia have sparked intense media interest and cast a pall over diplomatic ties.The purported burning of the Indian man was a front-page story in The Times of India, The Hindu and the Press Trust of India, fuelling tension.Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna met Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith twice last week on the sidelines of a London summit on Afghanistan to discuss the attacks, saying "it was becoming increasingly difficult to accept these attacks as mere opportunistic crime devoid of any racial motives".Victorian police have repeatedly said they do not record the ethnicity of assault victims and a spokesman yesterday was unable to confirm Mrs Singh's claimed number of incidents.A dossier prepared by Victorian police and given to the Indian Government last month detailed 18 high-profile attacks on Indians over the past year.But last month Commissioner Simon Overland added to confusion, admitting "about 50 per cent" of assaults on Indians involved taxi drivers and convenience store workers, suggesting records are kept.The controversy has led to a sharp fall in the number of Indians applying for student visas, threatening Australia's $17 billion-a-year international education industry.Australian officials are working furiously to repair the damage.Mr Krishna has branded the attacks on Indian students "unacceptable", comparing the treatment of Indian students in Australia to those in the US."There are about 100,000 Indian students in the United States of America [but] we don't have such complaints from the United States," he said. "Why is it only in Australia that there is attacks? These attacks are directed at students from India."Jaspreet Singh, 29, of Grice Crescent, Essendon, was charged yesterday with making a false report to police and criminal damage with a view to gaining financial advantage over the car fire.Police told an out-of-sessions hearing before a bail justice that Mr Singh was in financial difficulty and stood to gain $11,000 in insurance from the incident.He was bailed to appear in the Magistrates Court on March 15.Mr Brumby said the point needed to be made that the people charged with the murder of Indian man Ranjodh Singh in NSW were Indian.Mr Singh's body was found on the side of a NSW road in December.Married Indian couple Gurpreet Singh, 23, his wife, Harpreet Bhullar, 20, and a second man, Harpreet Singh, have been charged with murder.
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