By IANS,
New Delhi: Australia Tuesday stressed that there was “no place for racism or racist violence” and cited the recent sentencing of an Australian youth who had attacked an Indian student as proof of Canberra’s zero-tolerance for incidents of this nature.
“There is no place in the Australian society for racism or racist violence and the perpetrators of any such acts will face the full force of the law,” Australia’s High Commissioner to India Peter Varghese said here in a statement.
An Australian court in Melbourne had recently sentenced 21-year-old Zakarie Hussein to four-and-a-half years’ jail for attacking Sukhraj Singh, an Indian student, who went into coma after being mercilessly beaten up.
While sentencing the youth, Judge Pamela Jenkins had said that such racist attacks need to be condemned.
“This is another demonstration of the zero-tolerance approach being taken by Australian authorities in response to cases of violence against Indian students,” Varghese said while alluding to the first sentencing in a case involving attack on Indian students.
“Australian authorities are taking such incidents extremely seriously,” he said.
“Our legal system has delivered justice in the Sukhraj Singh case in a prompt and efficient manner. This judgment will send a strong signal to the community that such acts will not be tolerated and will be investigated and punished,” he said.
Four of the individual’s co-offenders, aged between 14 and 17 at the time of the attack, have already received 12-month sentences in a youth detention centre and a fifth teen received a 12-month youth supervision order.