Time for rethink on race issue in Indian deaths Lauren Wilson and Amanda Hodge From: The Australian March 11, 2010 12:00AM
THE family of Pardeep Kumar came to Australia for answers. Today they depart only with his ashes and a string of unanswered questions.
Kumar, 33, was a single, hard-working Indian engineer who came to Australia last year for work.
He settled in Mildura, in northwest Victoria, picking fruit on contract for local producers and studying English in his spare time.
In September, Kumar went missing. He was last seen at the Mildura library on the afternoon of September 22, having called his sister in India earlier that day.
Two weeks later, his body was found 35km away across the NSW border in Monak. Police said it was so badly decomposed that a positive DNA analysis took five months.
Kumar's death, which is being investigated as a murder by the NSW police, was one of a string of crimes against Indians, including the death of three-year-old Gurshan Singh Channa last week, that captured the attention of the Indian media.
While race was cited early by the Indian press as a potential motivator for many of these crimes, the reality has proved more complicated in those cases where charges have been laid.
In NSW, an Indian couple was charged earlier this year over the murder of fruit-picker Ranjodh Singh in Griffith, 635km west of Sydney, in December.
An Indian living in the same rental house as Gurshan and his parents was charged on Sunday with the boy's death.
And in the headline-grabbing case of Jaspreet Singh, who claimed he was doused with petrol and set alight by a gang in Melbourne in January, police later charged Mr Singh himself with making a false report to police and criminal damage with a view to gaining a financial advantage.
Kumar's murder, like that of 21-year-old Nitin Garg, remains unsolved. But while the Indian media widely criticised the Victorian police's response to Garg's death, Kumar's brother and uncle -- who travelled to Australia to collect his ashes and take them home to India -- have nothing but praise for the Australian government and the NSW and Victorian police.
The two men were among a small congregation of mourners who farewelled Kumar yesterday at a small Hindu funeral in Melbourne's southeastern suburbs.
While incense burned at a shrine by the coffin and a prayer song was played at the funeral home, Kumar's uncle Parveen Kumar placed his hand on top of the wooden coffin and wept.
He said his nephew had been a hard-working man who had enjoyed life in Australia and made friends with other fruit-pickers.
Kumar's brother, Vindod Sherma, speaking through an interpreter after yesterday's service, said: "The Australian high commission as well as the police departments in NSW and Victoria did a wonderful support to this family and we are sincerely saying thank you."
He said he was satisfied with the police investigation and hoped "the one who actually committed the crime should be punished by the Australian government (so) that justice can be done for Pardeep Kumar's soul".
The family's comments came yesterday as the editor of the Indian newspaper that published a cartoon in January depicting a Victorian police officer as a Ku Klux Klan member said the controversial drawing "helped people focus on the issue" and was not meant to paint all Australians as racist.
Bharat Bhushan, editor of the popular tabloid Mail Today, conceded that the recent rash of violent crimes committed by Indians against Indians could "give pause for thought" to those who had been quick to categorise every incident involving Indians in Australia as being racially motivated.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/time-for-rethink-on-race-issue-in-indian-deaths/story-e6frg6nf-1225839328006
