With the attack on Mir Kazim Ali Khan in Melbourne on Monday (reported in the Delhi edition of The Hindustan Times on June 24, 2009), the number of attacks in the ongoing series of attacks on Indians in Australia has gone up to 16.

The Australian government can no longer label these attacks as petty crimes. Nor can it claim that there is no racial angle to these attacks.

These attacks prove one of the two things.

One: that these are indeed racial attacks in which case Australian government needs to do more than provide lip service by trying to explain this away as petty crimes and deal with this as such.

Two: that these are common crimes in which case Australia cannot claim to be a safe country no matter what kind of statistics it chooses to throw at us.

The total area of Australia is 7,686,850 sq km. By comparison, the total area of India is less than half of Australia at 3,300,000 sq. km. The population of Australia is estimated at 20,434,176. By comparison, India’s estimated population is about 1,103,371,000 which is more than five times the population of Australia.

The pressure on land and other resources is ten times more in India as compared to Australia. So, the safety and security in Australia cannot be determined by the number of crimes committed. All these figures have to be viewed against the backdrop of the larger picture taking into account all the factors that lead to crime.

The attacks have been too many and too frequent. Strangely, only Indians are being targeted each time except for one. It is too much of a coincidence if it is true. The emerging pattern of crime is alarming.

When a similar attack was carried out on Indians in Canada recently, the Canadian government responded immediately by rounding up all the four miscreants and charging them with racial attacks. A similar response is imperative in Australia as only such an action can restore the confidence of the Indians in Australia.

Considering the fact that a huge chunk of the expatriate students in Australia come from India, it might cut into the Australian economy where education is a big draw from the economy point of view.

In any case, enough is enough. The time for explanations and justifications is over. It is time for the Australian government to act and show to the world that a government which can maintain some semblance of law and order still exists in Australia.