Another Indian student racially abused, bashed up in Australia

Neeraj Bhardwaj was approached by two drunk men when he was waiting for a tram near Melbourne Aquarium at 4 am (local time) on Easter Monday after a night out, the Age reported today.The men, who Bhardwaj said were white and aged in their 20s, demanded his wallet. Even after he handed it over, one man punched him several times in the face until he lost consciousness.

Bhardwaj said the men left immediately but returned about 15 minutes later and punched him again, one of them screaming: "F--- off, go back to your own country".
The assault left Bhardwaj with a damaged left eye, broken nose, headaches and sore ribs. He said the doctors told him his left eye had lost "80 to 90 per cent" of its capacity and might never recover .Scared after the incident, Bhardwaj says he does not know what to tell his family back in India.

Even scared to leave the house after the incident, he is unable to work and fears blindness might prevent him from becoming a chef or restaurant manager.
"I had a bright future but it has been taken away by criminals. I'm not safe in this city," he told the newspaper.

Over 100 cases of attacks on Indians have been reported since the last year in Australia, mostly in Victoria with one death.

Twenty-one-year-old Indian-youth Nitin Garg was stabbed to death on January 3, in the first case of casualty in a series of vicious attacks on the community members.
Garg, who migrated from Punjab and had permanent residency in Australia, was stabbed in the abdomen in a park while on his way to work.
The body of an Indian national, Dharmendra Singh was found in Sydney on Sunday, and the police is investigating the circumstances around his death.