Melbourne: Two fresh cases of assault on Indians have been reported in Sydney and Adelaide, with three students being injured. These attacks come despite serious efforts by the country to reestablish its image as a safe destination for international students.
Two students were injured outside a hotel in Sydney last week in what appeared to be a petty street crime, apart from a separate incident surfacing from Adelaide.
New South Wales Police official Brian Wyver said the two men in Sydney suffered minor injuries in a scuffle outside a hotel in Wollongong on Friday.
"When the police arrived they couldn't locate anyone there. They later found that two people had been taken to Wollongong Hospital by a friend," Wyver was quoted as saying by the Herald Sun.
"They attended the hospital and there appears there has been some sort of fight outside the hotel. They didn't want any action in relation to that fight, they weren't badly injured so police have taken a report," he said.
Wyver said the students did not indicate that the fight had been racially-motivated, and they did not want to press charges. "We have asked for CCTV footage from outside the hotel to find out what happened," he added.
In another case, an Indian student was attacked in Adelaide after a group of four drunken localites attacked him.
Angrez Singh, 27, who works as a taxi driver, was on his way to drop his customers when the fight broke out.
"I received six stitches on my face after they punched me several times," Singh, who hails from Faridkot and has been in Australia for the last two years, said.
The Australian government has been asserting that Australia was still as a safe destination to reside and study, despite the recent spate of attacks on Indians has been widely reported in the media.
It has been reported that the incidents of assault in Melbourne, especially by young men, has been on rise.
Last week, a concerned Victorian Premier John Brumby and police chief Simon Overland pleaded Victorians to rise up against the growing culture of street violence.
Acknowledging that assaults were becoming more frequent and vicious, Premier and Chief Commissioner said all Victorians shared the responsibility to purge the state of what Brumby called "mindless, senseless, gutless cowardice".
According to Victoria Police, the number of assaults in metropolitan Melbourne rose by nearly six per cent between March last year and March this year.
The fresh reports of attacks came as Australian Immigration Minister Chris Evans prepared to leave for New Delhi to reassure Indians of their safety Down Under, insisting that his country is "not racist".