Attack on students in Australia cause for concern: Tharoor

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Attack on Indian students in Australia was causing a great deal of concern but India did not want to view the situation as a problem between the two countries, Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor said here on Sunday.

Attack on Indian students "obviously is a great deal of concern to us" and New Delhi has appealed to Australia to take adequate steps to protect Indian students, he told reporters.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spoke to his Australian counterpart on the matter. The Australian government had also sent a "brief" of the action taken to stop recurrence of such incidents, he said.

Australia was also very keen to resolve the matter as many Indian students were going for higher studies there as the education sector in that country was a 1.5 billion dollar business. In their own interest, they have to stop these kind of incidents, he said.

"The incidents in Australia should not be dramatised..no doubt it has to be stopped. The attacks have racial colour, but criminal elements were also involved in it," he said.

India did not want to escalate the incident as a problem between the two countries, he said, adding encouragement should be given to Australia's efforts in resolving the issue.