Indians attacked in Australia

Australia, a preferred destination for young Indians seeking to further their education, has witnessed a spate of attacks recently that led to allegations of widespread racism in Australian society, and a failure by law enforcement authorities to act.

The brutal incidents coming so close together, often unprovoked, left Indian students on the edge and shocked government authorities back home.

Here's a look at some stories of brutality against Indians reported from Down Under.

October 2010: A 12-year-old Indian student in Australia was bullied and brutally punched in the face for no apparent reason. So severe was the injury that he had to undergo a surgery to reconstruct his eye socket.

The boy's family has been so traumatised by the bashing that they are considering returning to India.

September 2010: "Buddy, are you Indian?", asked a group of Australian teenagers before beating a 21-year-old Indian with baseball bats. The man was walking to Sandown Park rail station when the incident occurred.

The Indian was bruised and had a large cut on his nose. (AFP Photo)

July 2010: A young Indian student was beaten so profusely in Melbourne that he had critical face and mouth injuries. Such was the severity of the attack that he wasn't able to speak for the weeks that followed.

Bharat Thapar, the victim, saw six people beating another Indian on the streets of Melbourne. When he tried to intervene, the attackers turned on him.

Reports also said that the local cops who arrived at the scene summoned an ambulance, but let the six assaulters leave the location.

July 2010: In July, an Indian student was attacked by a group of teenage boys who tried to snatch his money while he was walking home from his part-time job. Hervir Singh, a hospitality student, was attacked late at night in Ringwood area.

After the incident, he said he was tempted to start carrying a knife to protect himself.

July 2010: July also saw some justice being delivered as three men arrested for attacking an Indian student on a moving bus in Australia's Victoria state were charged with inciting racial hatred and were arrested.

22-year-old Rajan Kumar Katkam was assaulted on a bus travelling towards Portsea on February 6, 2010. The accused also threw chicken pieces at him.

The ordeal went on for 45 minutes and no one came to his rescue except one old lady. Following the incident, he was forced to defer his studies.

April 2010: A 24-year-old student from the community was severely beaten up in western Sydney. He was repeatedly hit and kicked by unidentified assailants.

April 2010 A 34-year-old Indian man's throat was slashed at one of the busiest train stations in Australia's Queensland state.

Narender Kumar Patel was allegedly grabbed from behind while a knife was pressed against his throat, causing a wound.

October 24, 2010: A group of over 10 teenagers attacked an Indian man at a fast food joint on Chapel Street. Empty beer bottles were smashed on his head at least thrice when he protested against derogatory remarks made by the teenagers, who also used aggressive body language and called Indians 'curry munchers.' (AFP Photo)

October 10, 2010: Four Australian police officers were sacked and disciplinary action initiated against 15 others in connection with the circulation of racist emails joking about the electrocution of an Indian train passenger and suggesting that it could be "a way to fix the Indian student problem" in Melbourne.

July 14, 2010: A gang fire-bombed three cars belonging to international students, mostly Indians, in the Australian city of Adelaide.

More than 12 cars had been damaged in the past three months, mails stolen from letter boxes, racist graffiti painted and garbage bins emptied on the streets. (AFP Photo)

January 12, 2010: Another attack on an Indian, this time in Sydney. The victim was a 28-year-old man who was at a beach in Sydney when he was reportedly attacked by a group of Australian-born boys and girls. This was the second attack on an Indian in a span of one week. (AFP Photo)

January 3, 2010: Twenty-one-year-old Nitin Garg, an accounting graduate who was originally from Punjab, died after he was stabbed in West Footscray area of Melbourne. He was on his way to work for a night shift at a Hungry Jacks fast food restaurant. Nitin was the first to die in a slew of attacks on Indians in Australia. (AFP Photo)

Nitin's mother Parveen Garg weeps over the dead body of her son during the cremation ceremony at Jagraon, about 40 kms from Ludhiana on January 10, 2010. (AFP Photo)

Relatives of Nitin Garg hold his photograph during his cremation ceremony on January 10, 2010. (AFP Photo)

A placard at a candle lit vigil in the western suburbs of Melbourne on January 4, 2010 where Nitin Garg was fatally stabbed.

Australian officials downplayed any racial aspect to the attack, saying jobs that Indian students do to support their education meant they were often in dangerous areas or on public transport late at night. India condemned the stabbing and warned that the attack could put bilateral ties under strain. (AFP Photo)

October 21, 2010: An Australian teenager was charged with the murder of Nitin Garg. A Melbourne Children's Court charged the 16-year-old boy, who was not named, with one count of murder. (AFP Photo)

November, 2009: A 22-year-old youth was punched on his face by a group of Australians, who also told the victim that "in this place there is no home for you".

Sai Ratan Tiwari, from Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh, was on his way to a temple along with a friend when two Australians stopped him and asked where they were going.

September 25, 2009: A taxi driver was allegedly assaulted by a footballer in Melbourne. Australian-Rules football player Michael Hurley was arrested for kicking and punching an Indian cabbie outside a fast-food outlet on Hoddle Street.

Hurley took the taxi outside a South Melbourne nightclub and then stopped for food. When the driver pursued him asking for fare, Hurley allegedly kicked him in the groin and punched him. Police arrested him at the scene, but he was released later after questioning.

September 14, 2009:'Go back to India'- shouted a group of 80 Australians in Melbourne's eastern suburb of Epping before attacking three Indians with beer bottles.

One of the victims Sukhdev said most of the attackers were in their early 20s. Another victim Mukhtiar Singh, a cab driver, had been living in Australia for the last 22 years. His 21-year-old son was also attacked.

August 10, 2009: Mohit Mangal, an engineering student in Sydney, was beaten up with beer bottles by unidentified people. The attack came despite assurances given to External Affairs Minister SM Krishna by the Australian government that they were doing all they could to ensure the safety of Indian students there.

June 30, 2009: A 22-year-old Sikh youth was assaulted by a group of six teenagers, who tried to remove his turban and cut his hair. Resham Singh, a student of hospitality course who came from Punjab six months ago, became the 20th victim within a month when he was attacked at Dandenong Station. (AFP Photo)

June, 2009: A student from Hyderabad Mir Kazim Ali Khan's Australia dream turned sour after he was attacked by two people near Box Hill railway station in the eastern suburbs.

June, 2009: There was no end to the list of violent racist attacks in Australia as yet another Indian student was bashed in Melbourne's eastern suburb. Twenty-year-old Sunny Bajaj was verbally abused and then punched by two men as he was about to get into his car in Boronia.

May 2009: Indian student Shravan Kumar, whose comatose images last year shocked people back home, faced a brutal racial attack in Australia. The 23-year-old student from Andhra Pradesh was attacked with a screwdriver by local teens who barged into his apartment when Shravan and his three Indian friends were relaxing over the weekend. (AFP Photo)

The 23-year-old had left home in November 2007 to pursue a 2-year diploma in automobile electricals. His uncle had paid for his education as it was beyond the means of his farmer father. Seen in this photo with External Affairs Minister S M Krishna in Melbourne on August 9, 2009. (AFP Photo)

May, 2009: Sourabh Sharma, 21, came to Australia to study hospitality and he found just the opposite when six thugs confronted him on the train home to Werribee on May 9. The video footage of the attack showed one of the attackers laughing.

The series of highly publicized attacks sparked rallies against racism in Australia. The wave of assaults on international students in Australia was dubbed as "curry bashings" and Australia was termed as the "Land of racists." (AFP Photo)

A man holds up the Indian flag as students rally against racism in Sydney on June 7, 2009 after a series of highly publicised attacks. (AFP Photo)

Some 97,000 Indians are among more than half a million foreigners studying in Australia, an industry worth almost 12 billion Australian dollars a year. (AFP Photo)