New York: Indian-American groups, community leaders and officials consider murder of five Indian students and two professionals, mostly from Andhra Pradesh, in less than a year in the US as "acts of random violence and blotched robberies" but said there was no need to panic.
In interviews, they said it is always tragic when a young person is killed in the prime of life but they do not see any pattern that suggests that students from either India or Andhra Pradesh are being targeted.
Indian-American leader Sant Singh Chatwal said he sees no pattern in the killings and hence they are acts of random crime. "It would be wrong to scare the potential students from coming to the US by raising the bogey of hate crime."
Chairman of the US India Political Action Committee Sanjay Puri also discounted reports that Indian students were being targeted and said these appeared to be random cases of crime. He also made the point that Indians constitute the largest proportion of students and as their number increases, chances of their being victims of such crimes increases.
"Even one death of a young student who has come to study to make good in life is too many but it would be wrong to think that there is any bias against them," he said. He agreed there is need to educate students on safety and said that they should acquaint themselves with the area in which they are living.
Such incidents can happen anywhere and should not deter Indians who want to come to the United States for higher or specialised studies. While the major incidents get reported, they agreed that the students could also be victims of robberies which they never report, other community leaders say.
India sends the largest number of students followed by China. Currently, some 80,000 students are studying in various American universities and as their number rises, there could be some increase in crimes against them.
