Australian teen admits to Indian student murder

An Australian teenager has pleaded guilty to the murder of Indian student Nitin Garg last year, an attack described by New Delhi as "a heinous crime on humanity". The high-profile stabbing followed other attacks on Indians in Australia, though police say Garg's murder was not racially motivated.

Reuters

A 16-year-old boy pleaded guilty to murder and attempted armed robbery in a court in Melbourne on Wednesday.

He committed the crime with an accomplice, who agreed to testify against him. Police also had recordings of the boy confessing the murder to his mother.

Garg was murdered in Melbourne on 2 January 2010, as he made his way to work. His assailants attempted to steal his mobile phone and fatally stabbed him when he refused.

The crime followed a series of muggings and beatings of Indian students in Australia, which received great media attention and provoked outrage in India.

Though some of the attacks appeared to be arbitrary, the foreign minister at the time, Stephen Smith, said that a number of them were racially motivated.

The attacks badly damaged Australia's reputation as a welcoming place for foreign students, with the number of Indians enrolling for Australian universities falling by 30 per cent year-on-year.