New Delhi - Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan has turned down an honorary doctorate offered to him by an Australian university after attacks on Indian students in that country, according to a posting on his web blog Saturday. There have been a spate of attacks on Indian students in Australia reported in recent weeks, leading to outrage and concern in India.
The Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, had offered Bachchan, 66, an honorary doctorate for his contribution to the world of entertainment, Bachchan wrote in his blog.
He had earlier accepted and the honour was to have been conferred on him in July as a part of a retrospective of his films in Brisbane.
"I mean no disrespect to the institution that honours me, but under the present circumstances, where citizens of my own country are subjected to such acts of inhuman horror, my conscience does not permit me to accept this decoration from a country that perpetrates such indignity to my fellow countrymen," the actor wrote.
Australian police on Friday arrested five teenagers in connection with the recent assaults on Indian students and charged one of them with attempted murder, Times of India newspaper reported.
A 17-year-old is suspected to be part of a group of gatecrashers who allegedly attacked Sravan Kumar Theerthala, 25, from India's southern state of Andhra Pradesh, and his friends at a party in Melbourne last weekend.
Theerthala was stabbed with a screwdriver and is being treated in a Melbourne hospital. Three of his friends were also injured in the attack.
On Thursday, another Indian student, Rajesh Kumar, suffered burns over 30 per cent of his body after a suspected petrol bomb was hurled at him in his Sydney home, PTI news agency reported.
There have been four separate incidents in which Indian students have been attacked over the past three weeks in, NDTV network said.
Several thousands of Indian students are studying in Australian universities and are estimated to comprise about 18 per cent of Australia's international student population.
Sydney-based community leader Yadu Singh was quoted as saying that attacks on the Indian community had been taking place for the past four years and were a combination of opportunistic robberies and overtly racist attacks.
Australian police have said the attacks were not driven by racial hostility and promised increased patrols around trouble spots.
India expressed its concern over the incidents to Australia's high commissioner in Delhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is believed to have raised the issue with his Australian counterpart Kevin Rudd on Friday.
