Indian student stabbed to death in St Petersburg

ST PETERSBURG, Russia, Sep 25 (Reuters) An Indian medical student was stabbed to death at the weekend in St Petersburg, scene of several racially-motivated attacks, the Indian consulate and student organisations said today.

The 27-year-old final-year student, named as Nitesh Kumar Singh, was killed outside a student hostel late yesterday.

''It happened some time around 10 o'clock in the evening. He had seven wounds to the spine. They took him to hospital and tried to revive him but he died at 11 o'clock,'' India's Consul-General Jordana Pavel told Reuters by telephone.

She would not speculate on the reasons for the attack. Deputy city prosecutor Andrei Lavrynko said a criminal case had formally been opened and ''all versions of what happened are being looked at''.

Ali Nasor, press secretary of an African student support group called African Unity, said it seemed clearly to have been a racially-motivated attack.

''He was standing alone outside the hostel. Those inside heard a noise and came out and found him lying with many wounds. He tried to explain that he had been attacked by a group of young people numbering 3-5 people,'' Nasor said.

''According to what eyewitnesses say and given other previous murders, I link this to national hatred and organised groups of young people,'' he added.

Russia has been hit by a wave of race-related attacks by far-right militants on dark-skinned people and foreign students say such incidents are particularly on the rise in Russia's second city.

President Vladimir Putin, himself from St Petersburg, has ordered police to crack down on the problem.

In February 2004, a nine-year-old girl from Tajikistan died from multiple stab wounds after a gang attacked her and members of her family on a St Petersburg street.

A year ago, a Congolese student was beaten badly and later died from his injuries.

Last month, a bomb exploded at a multi-ethnic market in Moscow killing 10 people in an attack that prosecutors said appeared to be racially-motivated.

REUTERS SP SSC1302