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Study finds Indian students in Australia more likely to be robbed

Myriam Robin

Fri Aug 12 2011

Indian Rally
In 2009, thousands of Indian students rallied against what they believed were racially  motivated crimes against them. Photo: Will Ockenden

In 2009, thousands of Indian students rallied against what they believed were racially motivated crimes against them. Photo: Will Ockenden

THE Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) has completed a study that found Indian students were less likely to be assaulted than the average Australian, but more likely to be robbed.

The study looked at rates of assault, robbery and theft of Indian students from 2005 to 2009, a total of 13,200 criminal acts.

Many Indian students work late-night jobs in the taxi, grocery and petrol industries, a fact which the authors of the study said may explain why they were more often the victims of opportunistic robberies.

AIC director Adam Tomison told The Australian newspaper that “nothing we have found lends support to the view that Indian students have been singled out primarily for racial reasons…Robbery is an opportunistic offence that is led by a range of factors, including whether people are seen as easy targets or not.”

Federation of Indian Students of Australia spokesman Gautam Gupta told ABC’s PM program that many students did not report crimes against them, so the statistics used in the study were probably incomplete.

AIC director Adam Tomison cautioned further research was needed to fully understand the motivations of the crimes.

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