Thaindian News

Melbourne, Feb.4 (ANI): Police in the Australian state of Victoria have said that while they are aware of the so-called “racially-motivated” attacks on Indians, they would be “looking at the bigger issue.”

The Herald Sun quoted Victoria’s Chief Commissioner of Police, Simon Overland, as saying he was “aware of Indians being over represented as victims of crime.”

Chief Commissioner Overland’s views come as a war of words has broken out between Australia’s Indian community and the Victorian Government.

Victoria Premier John Brumby has lashed out at the way the Indian media and Indian Government had overreacted to claims of racist violence.

Brumby has called for more balance after an Indian man living in Melbourne was charged with making false claims over burn injuries.

Jaspreet Singh, 29, was charged with making a false report to authorities and seeking criminal damage through the insurance route for financial gain.

Brumby said the Indian media’s reports of such incidents had been unbalanced.

“I think I’ll make a couple of comments and in a sense they go, as much as anything, to the way the Indian media and, to a lesser extent, some representatives in the Indian Government, portray these events,” he said.

On the murder of Indian-born taxi driver Ranjodh Singh, he said: “The people who have been charged with that murder are Indians.”

“So, I hope there is some balance to the debate, some balance to the reporting in India and certainly to date that balance hasn’t been there,” he added.

Spokesman for the Federation of Indian Students in Australia, Gautam Gupta, said Brumby’s attacks did not help the situation. (ANI)