Indian family attacked in Lynbrook - Lynn Prakasham

In what appears to be a racially motivated move in which on an Indian family was attacked by thugs outside Lynbrook Hotel in Lynbrook.

In the attack, Keith Prakasham, wife Jacqueline Prakasham and his brother Lynn Prakasham were allegedly racially abused and physically assaulted.

The attack took place on February 12 around 10.15 pm.

This is how Keith and Jacqueline’s daughter Kerri J. Prakasham, explained what happened on her Facebook page:

Around 10pm last night a racially motivated attack was made on my family outside the Lynbrook Hotel in the parking lot. A drunk and/or substance affected man spotted my father leaving his car and pursed him whilst calling out to him “You fucking Indian bastard.”

My dad is not an aggressive man and walked in the other direction—after all we are used to comments like this. People of Indian descent have long experienced racially motivated attacks. This man, despite my father walking in the other direction to avoid an altercation, swung and hit him in the chest.

My mother, who just parked her car, ran over to get in between and pull my dad away to safety. The man then threw a punch and directly hit her too.

My uncle ran out of the car at this point and suffered the biggest blow. This man attacked my uncle to the point that he was left bloodied on the carpark floor and rolled under the car. He was hospitalised and had to get stitches. He is pretty badly bruised and battered.

An amazing bystander was able to come to my families aid and avoided the situation from getting further out of hand. However the attackers were able to get away before the police could arrive due to the hotel security’s poor duty of care and blatant refusal to restrain the attackers.

The Lynbrook Hotel has been no help to my family in investigating who was behind these attacks. They refused to provide the CCTV footage—trying to palm the problem off. My uncle was able to get this photo of the man but we have nothing more than this.

 

This isn’t the first or the last time a racial attack will be made against an Indian person—or even a person of colour. I just never in my life thought that it would hit this close to home.

 Also read: Hobart based Kerala Origin Joy attacked

The Cranbourne Leader quoted Kerri saying the man allegedly continued his racist remarks including “go back to your country”, “brown dogs” and “Indian trash”.

“I was so shocked that it happened so close to home,” Kerri told Cranbourne Leader.

“As an Indian person I’m used to racist comments but I never thought that a physical assault would ever happen to someone close to me.”

“I thought we were getting over racism and things were getting better but this shows that people are still so cruel”

“We are regular people, we go to work, we pay our taxes,” she said.

“We should all be treated as one.”

Kerri Prakasham urged the community to be better and stand-up to racism.

Many locals are shocked to hear that an Indian family has been racially abused and physically attacked.

Victoria Police says a 29-year-old Clyde North man handed himself in over the incident.

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