'Hate crimes' in Australia spark global bad press

The international fallout from the murder of graduate student Nitin Garg in Melbourne has spread well beyond India, with media outlets in Asia, the Middle East, North America and Europe reporting the recurring attacks on Indians in Australia.

The growing bad press, which until now has largely been confined to India, has raised fears that the damage to Australia's $17 billion international education industry could spread to other countries.

The authorities have reason to be concerned – Indian enrolments in Australian universities dropped 46 per cent in July-October last year, according to official figures. Education is the country's third biggest export after coal and iron ore.

In China, the birthplace of almost a quarter of Australia's international students, it was reported on state-run television on Thursday that Australian police had confirmed that the earlier murder of Indian national Ranjodh Singh, whose partially burnt body was found beside a country road in New South Wales on 29 December, was "racially motivated". The report was factually incorrect, as the police did not make any such statement.

The official Chinese newsagency, Xinhua, this week reported that the stabbing murder of Garg, as he made his way to work at a fast-food outlet in Melbourne's west on Saturday night, had taken place "in the wake of a wave of attacks upon Indian students in Australia last year."

In an editorial, Dubai-based Gulf News said "motive based on hatred" was "the common trend" in a number of attacks in urban Australia recently.