Indian Students Targeted in Melbourne (Australia) Attacks

Indian Students Targeted in Melbourne Attacks (Update1)
By Madelene Pearson and Rebecca Keenan


June 9 (Bloomberg) -- Jaya Sankar, 22, an Indian student studying in Melbourne, watched as his friend was stabbed in the head with a screwdriver, putting him in a coma. Now, Sankar’s parents want him to quit his studies and return home.

“They don’t want me to stay in Australia anymore because it’s too dangerous here for Indians,” he said outside the hospital of his friend Sravan Kumar, 24. While Sankar kept a bedside vigil, thieves ransacked his accommodation, he said.

Violent crime against Indian students, including attacks with machetes, knives, and knuckle dusters, has risen by a third in the past year in the state of Victoria. While Australia has fought racism since ending its White Australia immigration policy in 1973, the attacks have hurt the country’s reputation abroad and threaten to cut the A$15.5 billion ($12.4 billion) earnings from teaching overseas students, the third-largest source of foreign income.

“It’s not just Indians, but there does seem to be a particular problem besetting the Indian students,” said Chris Nyland, professor at the School of Business and Economics at Monash University outside Melbourne. “If we do get the reputation for being unsafe, students may not come here.”

The rise in attacks has been fuelled by a jump in the number of Indian students coming to Melbourne, police said. There were 81,520 Indians enrolled in full-fee education in Australia in April, up 38 percent from 58,917 a year earlier, and a sevenfold gain from the 11,364 students in 2002, according to data from the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. Almost half of those study in Victoria state, of which Melbourne is the capital. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aPsONvqy_SAs

I don't know the complete set of circumstances, but I don't need to: There is no justification for one student to have done that to another.

and the extra high hurdles we now place on foreigners entering the country.

What a shame. The foreigners believe they are going someplace more "hospitable" only to find it (in some ways) ever so much worse.