Ludhiana: "Dad save me, they have entered my home, they will kill me, please do something, please save me... ,” and the call disconnected. These were the last words of Rajveer to his father, the moment before he was attacked at his house in Brisbane, Australia, on August 8. He was brutally thrashed and strangulated before he was thrown near his house.
Kulwant Singh, father of Rajveer, tried to establish contact with his son but there was no response. After two hours of frantic calls, someone identifying himself to be an employee of a private hospital, responded to the call and told Kulwant that his son was on a ventilator and that chances of his survival were thin.
Friends of Rajveer broke the tragic news to his family that their son fell victim to the hate crime.
“My son had died on August 8, but the Australian authorities deliberately put him on a ventilator to cover up the issue,” said Rajveer’s father.
Kulwant, who runs a grocery shop, had spent all his savings to send him abroad. He had gone to Australia in December 2007, completed his hotel management course from an institute in Melbourne and later settled in Brisbane. At present, he was working in a restaurant.
Rajveer’s mother Manjit Kaur said he was planning to return to India. He had told that he would celebrate the Independence Day with them.
Kulwant Singh said, “Since these hate crime cases started taking place in Australia, I kept on asking him to return. But he insisted that such cases were taking place only in Melbourne. He used to say that Australia was a safe country. But he had to pay a heavy price for his error of judgment.”
His younger brother Harprabhjit Singh and sister Dolma Singh are still in a shock. Now another trouble is staring at the family as it does not have enough financial resources to pay the hospital expenses where Rajveer was admitted. The family has demanded the Indian Government’s intervention in the matter.
- Mohit Khanna