Reportedly, a 29-year-old Indian-origin bus driver was burned to death on Friday when a man hurled an incendiary device at him in front of several shocked passengers in Brisbane city.
India will take up with Australia the issue of the immolation of an Indian-origin Bus driver in Brisbane.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in a tweet said that she would raise the issue at the highest level in the Australian government. She also expressed grief over the death.
Reportedly, a 29-year-old Indian-origin bus driver was burned to death on Friday when a man hurled an incendiary device at him in front of several shocked passengers in Brisbane city.
The victim, Manmeet Alisher, was driving a Brisbane City Council bus when he was targeted by the man who threw a device at him which sparked a fire.
Alisher died on the spot while several passengers on board the bus at the time managed to escape through the rear door. He hailed from Sangrur in Punjab and had moved to Australia about nine years ago.
MANMEET ALISHER TO BE FORMALLY HONOURED BY BRISBANE COUNCIL
So far, police have not identified a motive for the attack. They have arrested and charged 48-year-old Anthony Mark Edward O’Donohue with murder, arson and 11 counts of attempted murder, reported ABC.
They ruled out links to terrorism, and at a news conference police commissioner Ian Stewart said authorities had not found any evidence that the assault was racially motivated.
But Alisher’s family isn’t convinced.
“We suspect that it may be [racially motivated],” Alisher’s brother, Amit Alisher, told ABC, while still accepting there was no evidence to classify it as a hate crime. “We would like to see due process, we have faith in the Australian system.”
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi was concerned enough to telephone Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull about the killing. A series of attacks on Indian students in Melbourne in 2009 has helped fuel suspicion about anti-Indian sentiment in Australia.
A statement from Modi’s office said the telephone conversation conveyed a “sense of concern being felt in India over the recent brutal killing of Mr Manmeet Alisher, a person of Indian origin, in Australia,” reported the Hindustan Times.
Manmeet's brother Amit Sharma and members of his extended family attended a memorial service at the Brisbane Sikh Temple at Eight Mile Plains on Monday evening.
They travelled from India following the attack, and Lord Mayor Graham Quirk, who was also at the service, told those gathered they will do everything they can for Manmeet's family.
"I've set up an appeal to provide some financial support to the family, so that they can be supplied with the necessary funds to come to Australia when they need to during the course of justice," Mr Quirk said.
Alisher, a prominent figure and beloved singer in the Punjabi community, was employed as a casual bus driver and had only been working in the job for several months.
