Melbourne: An Indian community leader has claimed that over 20 incidents of "curry bashing" have taken place in Sydney in the past 30 days, and said there is an urgent need to address the issue as most students are reluctant to lodge any complaint out of fear.
Yadu Singh, the head of a committee that has been formed to address concerns about the welfare of Indian students in Australia, also revealed that more than 100 attacks on Indian youths were feared to have taken place in the last 12 months.
Singh, a Sydney-based cardiologist, said the attacks had grown over the last four years and there was an urgent need to address the issue. "There is a term 'curry bashing' for such incidents and it is used as 'lets go curry bashing'."
"They (the attacks) are not random at all, the people are targeting them. They know these students are easy targets," Singh said.
Indian students often become victims because they travel home late at night, alone, after working to support their studies, he pointed out, adding that they were also not reporting the incidents to police.
Many students were afraid that lodging any sort of formal police report would harm their chances of permanent residency.
"So they will suffer the humiliation and the insult and the criminals think 'We are pretty safe robbing them and nothing will happen'," Singh said.
Referring to the petrol bomb attack on 25-year-old hospitality graduate Rajesh Kumar, who received 30 per cent burns, Singh said "it is a clear case of racial attack as there is no other angle we can apply to this attack."
"Melbourne has a bigger problem, but if we don't do something it will be repeated in Sydney," said Singh. He sought more intensive undercover police effort to capture the offenders.