Melbourne, June 2 (IANS) Yet another student from India was attacked by a group of men after they stopped him and demanded cigarettes and money, the police said Tuesday. This incident took the number of such assaults on Indian students in Australia to six in over three weeks.
The victim, identified only as Singh, 21, was attacked by a group of men in suburban Melbourne after they stopped him and demanded cigarettes and money, The Age reported Tuesday.

The man, a nursing student at Chisholm College, Dandenong, in Melbourne’s east, was slashed with a box-cutter knife carried by one of five men who confronted him in a car park, the newspaper website quoted a spokeswoman for Victoria Police as saying.

She said the attack happened at 1.30 p.m. Tuesday as Singh was leaving the college.

“Five males confronted him as he crossed a car park and asked for cigarettes.”

The police said the victim told the men he was a non-smoker. The men then demanded money and when the student refused, he was slashed across the chest with the knife.

The victim went to Frankston police station where he made a statement about the attack.

Police spokeswoman Senior Constable Karla Dennis said there was no indication the attackers had deliberately targeted the student. “I would say this is an opportunistic fight. It could have happened to any individual of any nationality,” she said.

She said the student’s injury was minor and he did not need hospital treatment.

On May 30, another Indian student was assaulted here by a group of youths who teased and bullied him.

Ashish Sood, studying at the Carrik Institute here, was badly beaten up by a group of 15 youngsters Saturday. The incident took place at the city’s Chappel Street, South Asia Times has reported.

He, along with three others, was attacked by the group “who started teasing and bullying them for nothing and then pounced on them”.

Ashish was hit by a suspected metal object and the police was called.

He was admitted to Alfred Hospital with serious injuries and later discharged.

Earlier, there have been four attacks on Indian students in quick succession in Melbourne and Sydney, the two largest cities of Australia. The first took place May 9.

Three of the previous attacks on Indian students took place in Melbourne. Sravan Kumar Theerthala, 25, was hit with a screwdriver, Baljinder Singh was robbed and stabbed, and Sourabh Sharma, 21, suffered a fractured cheek bone and a broken tooth.

In Sydney, hospitality graduate Rajesh Kumar received 30 percent burns after a petrol bomb was hurled through the window of his Harris Park home.