New Delhi: It was a gang of teenagers that attacked an Indian man in Tallaght, a suburb in Dublin, on 19 July and spread “vicious, disgusting” rumours to justify its actions, says an Irish woman who came to his aid.
In a 12-minute video statement uploaded Sunday on Facebook, a sobbing Jennifer Murray also says that four Indian men were stabbed by members of this gang in Tallaght in the four days leading up to the incident at Parkhill Road on 19 July.
“I think it’s really important that everyone knows the truth about what happened,” she says, adding the “absolute scumbags” who attacked the Indian man in Tallaght probably had a blade under their knuckles and could have “very easily killed him”.
The incident, which Gardaí (Irish national police) is investigating as a hate crime has provoked a strong diplomatic response from India.
The Indian man in his 40s was violently attacked by a group of individuals who confronted him with false accusations of inappropriate behavior around children, beat him severely, partially stripped him in public, and left him bleeding from the face, arms, and legs.
Photographs circulated online and across Indian media showed the man slumped on the ground, bloodied and in visible distress. He was rushed to Tallaght University Hospital, where he remains under medical care. Gardaí, while confirming it they are investigating the incident as a potential hate crime, dismissed rumours spread about the victim as false.
India’s Ambassador to Ireland Akhilesh Mishra condemned the hate crime in unequivocal terms, questioning how media reports could describe such a clearly violent act as merely an “alleged assault”.
In the video she uploaded on Facebook, Jennifer Murray said she was driving along Parkhill Road in Tallaght Saturday, when she noticed a group of five to six adults, including one woman, gathered at a spot. “I saw this man standing there, completely soaked in blood, from his head all the way down to his toes,” she recalled.
Murray immediately got out of her car and approached the scene. The woman in the crowd was pointing at the man, saying he had been assaulted. “At that moment, he was pleading, ‘please help me, please save me’,” Murray said. She quickly told the crowd to back off, then brought the injured man to her car, which was parked just about 10 feet away.
Dismissing the rumours spread about the victim, Murray said he was “miles away from the playground”. “I knew straight away that that man had not done that (of behaving inappropriately around children),” she added. She also said that the man is “working with Amazon” and told her about his wife and 11-month-old baby back in India. “He is so highly intelligent and good at what he does …. he was so extremely polite to me the whole time, all he could say was thank you, thank you … he was visibly shocked, completely shocked.”
Appealing to the local community not to fall for “mob mentality”, Murray said: “It is our own that are causing the stabbings, not the foreigners”.
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‘Vile and utterly unacceptable’
Baby Pereppadan, a councillor for Tallaght South, who visited the victim in the hospital, told the Irish press that the Indian man was in a state of shock and unable to speak. Pereppadan also highlighted a disturbing trend of growing assaults in the area, calling for increased police presence and urging the public to recognise the contributions of the Indian community; many of whom work in healthcare, IT, and other critical sectors.
Irish MP Seán Crowe called the incident “vile and utterly unacceptable on so many levels,” labeling it a racist and violent attack. “Some residents are increasingly nervous to leave their homes due to this type of behaviour, regardless of whether they are new arrivals to our community or have lived here all their lives,” he told the Irish media.
Ireland’s Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration Jim O’Callaghan too acknowledged the growing issue of foreign nationals being falsely accused of crimes.
In a parallel incident, another Indian national was assaulted in Adelaide, Australia, Wednesday. Charanpreet Singh, a 23-year-old student, was violently beaten and left unconscious on a city street following a dispute over a parking spot. South Australia Police have arrested one suspect, while others involved in the attack are still at large. South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas condemned the attack as “completely unwelcome” and “not consistent with where the majority of our community are at”.
“Things like this, when they happen, it makes you feel like you should go back. You can change anything in your body, but you can’t change the colours,” Singh was quoted as saying after the incident.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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