Hate crime against Indians in Australia: Priest brutally attacked in church

According to reports, an Indian-origin priest was attacked in a church in Melbourne, Australia, on Sunday.

Melbourne, March 20: After the US, an incident of hate crime against an Indian has been reported from Melbourne, Australia, on Sunday. According to ANI, an Indian Catholic priest was attacked by a 72-year-old man while leading the Sunday mass in a Melbourne church.

The victim has been identified as Reverend Tomy Kalathoor Mathew, a 48-year-old Indian-origin priest. The accused attacked Mathew with a sharp weapon on his neck. The attack happened just before the priest was due to give the 11am Italian-language mass on Sunday.

The 72-year-old man has been charged for stabbing Mathew. Racism may be the reason the priest was stabbed in the neck moments before he was about to say mass at a Melbourne church, reports News.com.au.

Media reports say the accused told the priest that because he was an Indian, he must be a Hindu or a Muslim and therefore can't be saying mass prayers. The accused has been charged with intentionally and recklessly causing injury and bailed to appear in the Broadmeadows Magistrates' Court on June 13.

Currently, the priest is recovering from non-threatening injuries in a hospital in Melbourne. In recent times, we have been witnessed several hate crimes being committed against Indian-origin people in the US. The most gruesome was the killing of Srinivas Kuchibhotla, a native of Hyderabad, who died in a shooting incident in Kansas recently.

OneIndia News