Indian students in Sydney reluctant to report abuse

5 Jun 2009, 4:31 pm   -   Source: AAP
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Members of a committee linked to the Indian consulate fear students in Sydney are reluctant to report abuse to the police.

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A pattern of abuse against Indian students in Sydney may be a greater problem than the NSW government is aware of because students are reluctant to report incidents to police.

Premier Nathan Rees met members of the Indian community to address concerns that Indian students in NSW could be subject to the same kind of abuse experienced by Indian students in Victoria.

In one apparently racially motivated attack on four Indian students in Melbourne, a man was left fighting for his life in hospital.

Premier Nathan Rees told reporters in Sydney he would liaise regularly with Indian community leaders to protect the safety and welfare of the city's Indian students.

He did not believe there was a problem to date.

"Very occasionally (there are) minor incidents. (There is) certainly no pattern and nothing racially based," he said.

NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione told reporters there was no intelligence suggesting Indian students were being targeted in particular, despite an Indian hospitality graduate receiving burns to 30 per cent of his body when a petrol bomb was thrown through the window of his Harris Park home in Sydney's west last month.

"It was a horrific attack," he said of that incident.

"It highlights the importance of making sure the community understand that we want to hear, that every event, no matter how small it is, we want to be told, so we can take some action," said Scipione.

"We can't act if we don't know."

Dr Yadu Singh, from the Indian Consulate in Sydney, heads a committee to address concerns about the welfare of Indian students in Australia.

Dr Singh said he knew of a number of Indian students who had been robbed in Sydney because they were perceived as "soft targets".

"We have to have undercover policing to catch hold of these criminals who are exploiting the naivety and niceness of these students who have come from India," he said.

His colleague Vish Viswanathan said Indian students did not usually go to police.

"The Indians generally are not in the habit of going to the police because they are frightened to go to the police in India,” Viswanathan said.

"So when they come here they feel that if they go to the police something wrong will happen to them and they are afraid of that,” he said.

"They are also not aware of their rights. They feel reporting to police will affect their immigration status and a few other long-term plannings, so that is why the students have to be educated."

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