Sydney, July 29 - An Indian journalist, who was working undercover in Australia to expose an education and migration scam and was assaulted over the weekend, has said her attacker 'looked like an Indian person'.
The reporter, a 28-year-old long-time resident of Australia, told The Australian Wednesday: 'My attacker looked like an Indian person and I was threatened in Hindi.'
She was attacked in an inner-city Sydney street Saturday afternoon when a man wearing a turban came at her with an 'almighty elbow to the right shoulder', the report said.
'I know it was not a racially motivated attack,' she said. 'Most sane Indian students in Sydney and Melbourne don't think these are racist-motivated attacks at all.
'Every country has a bit of racism here and there. And really, with the classist system in India, we have no right to speak. Certainly we have way more racism in our country than here in Australia.'
Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith Tuesday said the government 'won't tolerate' any education and migration scam affecting foreign students.
Speaking on the ABC's Australia Network, Smith said: 'Of course it's very concerning... On the migration front, when we were in opposition we did express significant concerns about the regulation of migration agents, and as a consequence of that we've recently seen a migration regulatory authority come into existence to regulate that industry better.
'But any of these abuses we, of course, won't tolerate and don't tolerate. And the cracking down so far as the migration agents' regulatory arrangements are concerned will assist in that process.'
After the assault on the journalist, police and immigration officials Monday raided the office of an agent allegedly involved in exploiting foreign students.