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| Brumby criticised back home for not discussing Indian fugitive |
| Press Trust of India / Melbourne Sep 29, 2009, 09:19 IST |
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Victorian premier John Brumby, who is currently on a visit to India, has been criticised by the opposition party in Australia for failing to raise the case of an Indian fugitive during his trip.
While Premier is in India to reassure Indian government, prospective students and their parents that Melbourne is a safe place to study despite the recent attacks on foreign students, he has been criticised for not raising Puneet case.
The 19-year old Puneet allegedly fled from Australia in June using another student's passport after pleading guilty in a Melbourne court to culpable driving that killed one person and seriously injured another last year.
ABC radio report said "Brumby didn't want to risk offending his hosts by raising the Puneet case with the Indian government."
The report said Brumby told a TV channel here that "It wasn't on my agenda. It wasn't a priority in that sense. On the agenda there were other issues that the Indian ministers were very keen to discuss."
State's shadow attorney-general Robert Clark said that Brumby should have raised the case with Indian officials.
"Part of his mission was supposed to be to try to restore the credibility of the Victorian and Australian justice system,." he said adding "I think that credibility was very badly damaged when someone who'd already pleaded to culpable driving was able to get out of the country simply by using a fellow student's passport and flying out.
"I thought it would have been in all of our interests for John Brumby to try to restore the credibility of the Victorian justice system by trying to arrange for the offender to be brought back to Australia."
When it comes to the welfare of Indian students in Victoria, Brumby said Indian officials have made specific requests which he intends to act on.
"The thing that has come out of my meetings is the need for further follow-up information," he said.
"So if there has been an attack, if someone has been injured, what has happened? Have police charged people? Has it gone to court? What's happened? What are the penalties been?"
But Clark said Brumby has failed to get a similar update for Dean Hofstee's family on the search for Puneet.
"You would think Brumby would understand that Dean Hofstee's family would be very keen to get information flowing back to Australia from India about what was happening with Puneet. It is, and should be, a two-way street," he said.
"Certainly he can update the Indian community of what's happening here, but for Dean Hofstee's family to know what is happening about getting Puneet back to Australia to face justice is very important indeed," he said.
He had pleaded guilty to culpable driving that killed 19-year-old Gold Coast student Dean Hofstee and seriously injured his friend Clancy Coker last October.
Puneet recorded a blood alcohol reading of 0.165 at the time of the accident in central Melbourne.
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