Police stressed there was no evidence of a racial motive after four men poured an unidentified fluid on the 29-year-old man and set it alight in a Melbourne suburb, leaving him with 15 per cent burns. [break]
It follows last weekend´s stabbing murder of an Indian man in the city which prompted a New Delhi newspaper to print a cartoon likening Australian police to the Ku Klux Klan. In the latest incident, the victim was parking his car in a side street after dinner with friends when he was attacked in the early hours of Saturday. His condition was described as stable.
´I believe there´s no reason at this stage to consider this in any way racially motivated,´ detective sergeant Neil Smyth told reporters.
´The circumstances of parking a car randomly on a side street and just some people approaching him are a bit strange and it´s highly unlikely, therefore, to be a targeted attack on any individual... Police have only a vague description of the attackers ´which is really just unspecific, just four males,´ Mr Smyth said. ´It is an unusual event.´
Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the government ´condemns all acts of violence in the strongest possible way´. ´This matter remains under investigation by the Victorian police,´ she said in a statement.
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