Four white Canadians have been charged with racial assault. According to the police, the Indian-origin men were playing tennis last Friday at Langley, near Vancouver, when the four suspects approached them and started shouting racial slurs.

The assailants — three young men and a woman — went on to pull fence boards even as they continued shouting racial ‘‘obscenities and threats’’.

‘‘The suspects attempted to enter the tennis court which was now barricaded by the tennis players. They were able to force their way into the court and intimidated the victims until they were backed into a corner. One of the suspects threw a fence board at the group of tennis players hitting one of them in the head,’’ police said.

Before fleeing, the assailants took away personal belongings of the victims. They were later arrested and the stolen belongings recovered, police said.

The suspects were formally charged on Tuesday with assault with a weapon, robbery, causing physical harm and uttering threats. While 19-year-old Rodney Mercieca, who was on probation during the incident, was remanded in police custody till his bail hearing on June 12, the three others — Lesley Rothwell, 18, and two boys aged 15 and 16 who cannot be named under Canadian law — were released to appear in court later.

Oz PM warns against revenge attacks

Describing attacks on Indians as a “regrettable fact of urban life”, Australian PM Kevin Rudd on Wednesday warned Indian students against reprisals and “vigilante action” to prevent attacks. He also sought to downplay the race angle, saying that “up to” 20 Australians were “murdered or assaulted” in India in the last decade but that was “not the result of Australians being targeted in India”

Mumbai: Former Australian wicket-keeper and captain of the Deccan Chargers, Adam Gilchrist, said on Wednesday that overall Australia was a good place for Indian students.

Representing the University of Wollongong in Australia as its ambassador, Gilchrist said, ‘‘Wollongong is a very multicultural and welcoming to a wide range of international students including Indian students. I believe it’s a true representative of Australia’s openness to international students in general.’’

However, Gilchrist made no direct mention of the recent attacks on Indian students in his statement released by the Wollongong University on Wednesday, close at the heels of fresh attacks on two Indian men in New South Wales. Gilchrist has been spending time on the university campus meeting and interacting with Indian students. He highlighted the fact that the University of Wollongong itself hadn’t reported attacks against Indian students and overall this was the situation at most other Australian universities. ‘‘In cricket, Australia and India have enjoyed a long history of great sportsmanship and camaraderie. I personally still love touring India and I think this reflects the scene overall between India and Australia,” said Gilchrist.

Source: Timesofindia