Australia says latest attack not racial

Melbourne: Australia today said the attack on an Indian set afire here was not "targeted" or "racially- motivated", amid reports that two men attempting to leave this country were quizzed, and had their passports seized over the killing of another youth from the community in New South Wales.

Police said there were strange circumstances surrounding the attack on 29-year-old Jaspreet Singh, who was set on fire by a group of four men in the suburb of Essendon in Northwest Melbourne yesterday – which have led them to believe that it was not racially-motivated.

Detective acting senior Sergeant Neil Smyth said police are yet to locate the charred clothes which Singh, who received 20% burns on his body, discarded shortly after the incident. He said police have a general description of who the offenders could be.

"I believe there is no reason at this stage to consider this in any way as racially-motivated... the circumstances of him parking the car randomly in a side street, and just some people approaching him are a bit strange," he said.

"It's highly unlikely, therefore, to be a targeted attack on any individual."

Meanwhile in Sydney, two men, believed to be Indian seasonal workers, were quizzed and had their passports seized at the city's airport after they were briefly detained by detectives probing the killing of 25-year-old Ranjodh Singh, whose partially-burnt body was found recently.

Ranjodh Singh, a seasonal work contractor, who recruited Indian immigrants to work on farms in the Riverina, had been living in Wagga Wagga area, and was visiting Griffith in New South Wales at the time of his death. His partially-charred body was found on the side of Wilga Road at Willbriggie on December 29.

The two men, believed to be employed by Singh as seasonal workers, were detained at Sydney airport's departure lounge last Monday as they were about to board a flight to Nepal via Singapore, Sydney Morning Herald reported.

They were questioned at Mascot police station, but were later released without charge after being forced to hand in their passports.

Detectives believe Ranjodh Singh may have been murdered in a fight over unpaid wages at a Christmas party two days before his killing.

A post-mortem examination revealed his throat had been slashed, and he had suffered multiple stab wounds before being bound and set alight in an effort to conceal his identity, the report said.

The government of Victoria, which has witnessed most of these assaults, has expressed hope that such incidents would not damage people's opinion about Australia being a "safe" place to study, work and live, and asked police to carry out a thorough probe.