Sikh Gurdwara vandalized, student stabbed in Oz
Melbourne, Australia: Racial assaults continue unchecked in Australia. On Monday, a Sikh gurdwara was vandalized in Shepparton, a small town 90km north of Melbourne.
Racist graffiti and swastikas were scribbled on its walls, eggs thrown at it and the fencing around the gurdwara smashed by a car. On Tuesday, another Indian student was stabbed in the chest by a box-cutter knife on his way to college in east Melbourne.
Meanwhile, Australia set up an inquiry committee to look into the attacks even as Union minister for overseas Indian affairs Vayalar Ravi said his ministry would prepare and maintain a register of all Indians studying abroad and streamline campus placements to foreign universities.
Nardeep Singh, a 20-year-old from Ludhiana, was assaulted in a car park. The five attackers initially asked for cigarettes. When the student replied he was a non-smoker, they asked for money. On refusal, one of them stabbed him in the chest. Nardeep is a student of nursing at the Chisholm Technical Institute.
Singh, who had arrived in Australia only a month ago, fled to the police station where his statement was recorded. He is under observation in a Melbourne hospital.
