Melbourne, Aug 14 - Indian student Shivendra Singh, who is suffering from severe depression after being the victim of three armed robberies, is being 'threatened with deportation', a media report said Friday.

The 30-year-old IT student, who came to the Australian city of Adelaide from Uttar Pradesh in India, wants to take his skills back to India but has been caught in a dilemma not of his own making, ABC Online reported.

He was robbed while manning the counter of a corner shop in late 2004.

'It was my first job. I was working there and there was a guy... and actually it happened three times and it was the same guy who did those robberies,' he was quoted as saying.

'It was really bad. I had nightmares continuously about whether I should have done something. But I was not able to do anything,' Singh said.

He said, thereafter, 'everything fell apart in my life'.

'I didn't realise... culture-wise as well that I can be a patient of depression, but as I went on I just realised that my concentration in studies and other things were worsening.'

There has been a string of assaults on Indian students in Melbourne and Sydney over the past three months. The attacks caused an outrage in India and the Australian government assured that the students would be protected.

Nearly 100,000 students from India are enrolled in various courses in Australia. The country's education sector has been rocked due to the attacks with many fearing a downturn in the number of international students enrolling in Australian colleges.

Singh ended up on friends' couches and on the street after 'failing subjects, unable to work and viewed as a failure by his family'.