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Indian man beaten up in German town

G Sudhakar Nair in Berlin

In the current anti-foreigner wave in Germany, an Indian national was severely beaten up in an eastern town of the country this week.

Police said five assailants aged between 17 and 21 thrashed the 31-year-old Indian, whose name has been withheld, in a regional train and hurled abuses at him.

One of the remarks by the assailants was: 'Get out of here. You are taking away our jobs.'

The five youths have been detained on charges of causing physical injuries. Further investigations are on.

The incident occurred in the industrial town of Leipzig in Saxony, where two Indian executives were among the first few foreign computer experts who got green cards as part of a new scheme launched by the German government on August 1.

Ironically, the two incidents occurred on the same day.

Rajagopalan Venkatesh and Karan Singh, managers of the German arm of the L&T Group, received the 'work permit guarantees' on behalf of Ritu Gupta and Milan Krishna Mithbaokar from the assistant director of the Leipzig employment office, Wolfgang Rohwerder.

This is the second such incident in Leipzig in two months. An Indian researcher on a short-term visa was badly beaten up and dogs let loose on him when he emerged from a telephone booth in June.

The renewed wave of anti-foreigner violence in the past months has caused concern in Germany with political and business leaders warning that it would discourage computer experts from moving to the country and undermine Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's ambitious green card initiative.

Schroeder has warned that Germany's image will be tarnished by the attacks on foreigners, which some analysts have described as a resurgence of xenophobia, which was at its peak in the country in 1992.

There have been at least 28 extremist attacks on foreigners this year in Germany and four deaths were recorded in incidents that included repeated beatings and attempted fire-bombings of synagogues.

Ultra-rightist groups and neo-Nazis have been blamed for these incidents.

The abrupt increase of racist attacks has also triggered demands for a ban on the far-right National Democratic Party.

German companies are also worried that the extremist violence could scare off potential investors, customers, as well as scientists and other qualified foreign experts.

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