Sydney: Indian IT professional Prabha Arun Kumar was on the phone with her husband when she was stabbed just 300 meters from her home in Sydney on Saturday night.
"He stabbed me, chinna (darling)," the 41-year-old reportedly said to her husband Arun Kumar, as the conversation ended abruptly. By the time she was found by a passer-by and taken to hospital, she had lost too much blood and doctors were unable to save her.
The police have leased CCTV footage of Ms Kumar on a walkway in Sydney's Parramatta Park, moments before she was attacked. She had taken a shortcut home through the park at around 9.30 pm.
"There is nothing to suggest any racial angle to the murder," Indian Consul General Sanjay Sudhir told NDTV on Monday.
Robbery has also been ruled out; her mobile phone is missing but her jewellery was intact, say relatives.
Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj tweeted that she was in constant touch with the Indian Consulate in Sydney.
Ms Kumar's husband, who lives in Bangalore with their nine-year-old daughter, reached Sydney on Sunday. Ms Kumar was on work visa and was to return to India next month after a three-year assignment with Mindtree.
"She was a beautiful person in our family and the most daring woman. She liked adventure sports. She was an inspiration for me - she would do sky-diving, bungee jumping..." her nephew Thrijesh Jayachandra told NDTV.
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File photo: Prabha with her husband Arun Kumar)
Ms Kumar's flatmate in Sydney, Sarada, was quoted as saying that she had repeatedly warned her friend.
"She worked late regularly so felt bad to ask for a lift. I told her that it is not a safe way to come through because there are people that stop and ask you for money, like $2," she told The Daily Telegraph.
Sarada also shared that Ms Kumar spoke to her husband and daughter every day. "As soon as she finished work, she calls her husband and keeps talking," she said.
There were a series of attacks on Indians in Australia in 2010.