External Affairs Minister S M Krishna on Tuesday night spoke of the possibility of the Centre advising Indian students against traveling to Australia if the attacks on them continued.
Krishna said different kinds of action can be taken by the government in the wake of the attacks like issuing an advisory for Indian students not to go to Australia. "But, I think that (the advisory) would not be in the interest of our bilateral relations. So I am not thinking on those lines," he told a TV channel during an interview.
However, Krishna kept the option of asking Indian students not to travel to Australia open, saying it could possibly be one of the actions that the government can take if the 'present trend' (rise in attacks) continued.
Krishna said he was sure Australian authorities would take cognisance of the fact that India talks 'softly but certainly. When the decisive moment comes, the Indian government can also act and that, he said, will not be in the interest of either of the two countries.
He feared that if the string of attacks continued the way it has been in the last few days, the flow of Indian students to Australia might slow down and could unfortunately taper off also.
"This will have to be kept in mind by the Australian authorities and also the provincial governments," he said.
The minister said it was unfortunate that though there were students from several countries studying in Australia, it was only a section of foreign students, mainly from India, who are being attacked. "So, I think this angle needs to be looked into a little more deeply by the Australian authorities," he added.
In the first fatality in a series of attacks on Indian students in recent months, Nitin garg died in a Melbourne hospital earlier this month after being stabbed in his abdomen.
