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Outrage conveyed to Australian envoy

Sandeep Dikshit

NEW DELHI: India summoned the Australian High Commissioner Peter Varghese on Saturday to convey its outrage over offensive comments appended by Victoria State police officers to a video showing a man being electrocuted at an Indian railway station.

Some police officers of Victoria, which has seen the maximum incidents of assaults on Indians, had suggested that “this might be a way to fix the Indian students problem”.

Senior officials of the External Affairs Ministry told Mr. Varghese that such entrenched bias among sections of police officers towards the Indian community was a matter of serious concern and such behaviour should have no place in any society.

Effective measures

With investigations under way in Melbourne, capital of Victoria, External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna, in a statement, hoped that apart from taking action against officials concerned, Australian authorities would also take necessary and effective measures to address concerns about the safety of all people of Indian origin in Australia.

The video showed a man on the roof of a train spurning pleas to climb down to safety. As people watched, he stood up and was instantly electrocuted when he touched the overhead traction wires.

The video ended with shots of his smouldering body lying on the roof of the train.

The Australian media has reported that the mail with the racist comments was circulating in the police computer system.

Racist content

According to The Herald Sun, some of the force's top officers have been implicated in the scandal, which also involves pornographic material.

Three superintendents and several inspectors are being hauled up after an examination of the emails showed they contained pornographic, homophobic, racist and violent material.

Apology conveyed

Australia went into apology mode with Mr. Varghese conveying his government's condemnation of the incident and handing over copies of statements already made by the Premier of Victoria and the Chief Commissioner of the State Police in this regard.

“This is completely offensive and contrary to the views and values at the heart of the Victorian community — tolerance and respect,” said Premier John Brumby while Police Chief Commissioner Simon Overland described the emails as “disturbing, offensive and gross”, adding that “these are matters which demanded we took action. Some of the content was extremely offensive and we can't tolerate that within the ranks of Victoria Police.”

The summoning of the Australian High Commissioner was preceded by a demarche issued to his New Zealand counterpart a few days back after a TV anchor in Auckland made fun of Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit's surname.

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