RUSSIA: Foreign students take to the centre of St Petersburg to demand a full investigation into the murder of an Indian medical student

Hundreds of foreign students took to the centre of St Petersburg to demand a full investigation into the murder of an Indian medical student that seemed to be racially motivated. 27-year-old final-year student, named Nitesh Kumar Singh, was stabbed outside a student hostel late on Sunday night. He was taken to hospital but died from his wounds later. India's Consul-General Jordana Pavel said Singh died of seven wounds on the spine. She would not speculate on the reasons for the attack. Holding up pictures of the Singh, the students shouted slogans like 'we want for justice' as they stood outside the prosecutors office. Deputy city prosecutor Andrei Lavrynko has vowed to investigate the case and to look at various versions of what happened. Russia has been hit by a wave of race-related attacks by far-right militants on dark-skinned people and foreign students say such incidents are particularly on the rise in Russia's second city. Sunday's attack took place after members of a nationalist organisation called 'the movement against illegal immigration' staged a rally in the centre of St Petersburg. President Vladimir Putin, himself from St Petersburg, has ordered police to crack down on the problem. In February 2004, a nine-year-old girl from Tajikistan died from multiple stab wounds after a gang attacked her and members of her family on a St Petersburg street. A year ago, a Congolese student was beaten badly and later died from his injuries. Last month, a bomb exploded at a multi-ethnic market in Moscow killing 10 people in an attack that prosecutors said appeared to be racially-motivated.

ITN Source | September 26, 2006

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