The Australian High Commissioner in India has admitted that some assaults on Indian students there have 'racist motive' and said the government has taken effective steps to bring those to an end.
John McCarthy said majority of attacks against Indians, in the past month, have taken place in 'poorer' areas in Melbourne where the crime rate is already high.
'There have been a series of bad crimes, particularly in Melbourne and not all of them have resulted into serious injuries, but have taken place in very poorer areas of Melbourne. We are seeking to end those attacks as quickly as possible by intensifying police actions,' he told Karan Thapar on CNBC-TV 18.
'There is no question that all these are criminal acts. For some of the acts the motivation might have a racist element. I will not rule out that some of the attacks were racist,' he said while responding to a question on the nature of the assaults on Indian students.
The High Commissioner said both the federal and state governments have taken steps to see that such attacks don't take place in the future and added that police presence has been doubled in areas where students were attacked.
The High Commissioner also said his government has set up a hotline for students, an educational task force under the Education Minister and another task force headed by the Prime Minister himself.
'We are not sitting on the issue. We are moving on it. We intend to deal with it and we will deal with it. We will fix it,' he said.
McCarthy said it was 'unfortunate' that the media has termed Indian students as soft targets and thought that Indians are targeted because 'they work till late in the night and live in areas where the crime rate is high'.
'These neighbourhoods in Melbourne are dangerous anyway and we realise that there should much greater level of counselling to the students and higher level of interference between police and students,' McCarthy said.
The High Commissioner said he was worried that the image of Australia has taken some beating in the country. 'I would stress that Australia has been a safe destination for Indian students and others and will continue to be,' he said.
McCarthy said the goodwill between India and Australia will not be affected due to the recent attacks and appreciated the way India dealt with the situation.
On whether he felt that India would issue a travel advisory to students on visiting Australia, he said: 'I am obviously conscious of that possibility and I would be very hopeful (it does not happen).'
