India has called for restraint after retaliatory attacks by Indian students in Australia.
"I would like our students to be patient and practice restraint. They have gone there to pursue higher studies and they should concentrate on that rather than retaliate," said S M Krishna, External Affairs Minister.
"Today we caught that person, that Lebanese person, we caught them and we called police, police came here and arrested Indian boys and released that criminal," said Indian student.
Indian students in Sydney and Melbourne are enraged at what they call police inaction.
''If they do not do anything, we will do it ourselves, because we don't have any other option," said another Indian student.
Many students have started patrolling troubled areas themselves, a move that does not find support even within the Indian Diaspora. They feel our students are retaliating and not just with words.
"I don't think Indian students should take the law into their own hands because that would backfire on them as well as us. The Indian community has a good reputation here and we don't want that to be spoilt. I would urge people to not get into situations when we start taking law in our hands and start retaliating, beating, hitting, and all those things," said Dr Yadu Singh, Coordinator, Community Committee on Indian Students' Issues.
But Australian authorities have been forced to take notice of the continuing protests. Two Indian students arrested for being unruly have been released.
"As a national government we're concerned about any manifestations of violence in any part of the country. But to the extent that we see any international student hurt or at risk, we obviously want to make a difference," said Julia Gillard, Deputy Prime Minister, Australia.
Racial or not, attacks on foreigners point to the poor state of law and order in two of Australia's biggest cities: Melbourne and Sydney.
Indian students have been retaliating and that retaliation too sometimes borders on behavior most unruly. All eyes are now on the police on how soon they can deliver justice where it's due.
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