Now, Victoria Police claims booze, not racism behind attacks on Indian cabbies

Melbourne, Jan 16 (ANI): Victoria Police has said that a combination of booze and youthfulness is behind three attacks on Indian cab drivers.

Two Indian taxi drivers were assaulted at Ballarat on Friday night, just hours after a man was jailed for his attack on a cabbie in the same town a day earlier.

"The majority of taxi drivers in Ballarat are Indian," said Detective Senior Constable Jeff Highthorn.

He added that while three attacks on drivers in two days was unusual it was not uncommon for drivers to be targeted by drunken youths.

"On weekends, you sometimes get drunken youths that attempt to catch cabs for nothing and assault people and act in an anti-social way. Unfortunately, some youth today think such skylarking is funny," The Age quoted Highthorn, as saying.

The first incident occurred shortly before midnight in Sebastopol when four male youths assaulted a driver; including punching him and spitting at him, and briefly stole his taxi. They tried to pull on the handbrake and steering wheel and broke a radio screen, Highthorn said.

On Friday, 48-year-old Paul John Brogden, of Navigators near Ballarat, was jailed for three months after racially abusing an Indian taxi driver during a drunken rampage.

He had told the driver he would kill him when he was dropped off before racially vilifying him and damaging the taxi. (ANI)