Indian KKK news cartoon angers Australia police

Friday, January 8th, 2010

(Reuters) – Australian police angrily criticized on Friday a cartoon in an Indian newspaper that depicted them as racist Ku Klux Klan members following the fatal stabbing of an Indian student.

A cartoon in the Delhi Mail Today newspaper portrayed a person in a white Ku Klux Klan hood and wearing a Victoria state police badge against a black background and the words: “We are yet to ascertain the nature of the crime.”

Accounting graduate Nitin Garg, 21, originally from the state of Punjab in northern India, was stabbed to death last Saturday night on his way to a job at a fast food outlet in Melbourne. “To say that our detectives are going slow on this, or for some reason trying to protect somebody, is incredibly offensive and wrong,” said Greg Davies, secretary of the Victoria Police Association, the police officers’ union.

The killing followed a series of attacks on Indian students in Melbourne and Sydney in 2009, drawing diplomatic protests and travel warnings from New Delhi.

Indian media have labeled the attacks against Indian students in Australia as racist, but police and the government have insisted the attacks are purely criminal.

“The identity of the offender from the homicide in Footscray isn’t even known at this stage, so we don’t even know what nationality the offender is. To say it’s a race-based crime is not only premature, but stupid,” Davies told Australian radio in criticisms backed by Victoria Police Minister Bob Cameron.

The attacks have already damaged Australia’s lucrative foreign student market, which is the country’s third largest export earner, behind coal and iron ore, worth $13 billion Australian dollars ($11.93 billion) in 2007-08.

The number of Indian students wanting to study in Australia plummeted by 46 percent between July and October last year, according to Australian immigration department figures released this week. South Asians account for 19 percent of international students in Australia.

Reader Comments

  1. I can understand why the Indian community are incredibly angry with what is going on down here in Australia, but to label the police who seriously are doing their damn best to find these killers/attackers, as members of the KKK is incredibly harsh and offensive. The attack was most likely not even racially motivated. It took place in Footscray, and that is a very unsafe town for ANYBODY. Heck, one of my mates from school lives there (he is a white Australian), and he has been attacked twice. You just have to know which parts of each city to avoid and at certain times.
    Im from Melbourne, and i feel incredibly sad at what has been happening, and i feel ashamed and embarrassed to call myself an Australian. The things that have been going on here are NOT the Australian way of life :/
    I love people of all races :)
    Also, mind you, Australia is a VERY multicultural country, so it doesnt automatically mean that a white person attacked that poor Indian student. A lot of these crimes come from non-white Australian’s (could be Labanese, Somalian, Turkish, Greek etc.)

    I really, really hope that the police can find this killer and lock him up for life. My deepest sympathies from Australia.

    Posted by Kurt | January 8, 2010, 3:56 pm

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