Melbourne, June 18 (IBNS): An India taxi driver has said that men wielding baseball bats attacked him and smashed his car, hurling racial abuses as part of a string of attacks on cab drivers in Melbourne suburbs last night.
A gang of up to six men wearing balaclavas armed with baseball bats terrorised five taxi drivers during a string of violent robberies that left one driver in hospital and ending their last offence well after midnight, local media reported
Cab driver Harpreet Singh said was driving his taxi through Sunshine suburb when his car was rammed from behind and a second car pulled up abruptly in front of him and four men with baseball bats got out of to smash the driver-side window.
"It was terrifying. They were smashing the car and hitting me with the bats also," he said.
"I leaned to the left side (of the driver's seat) to avoid the baseball bats hitting me (but) one guy punched me in the face. They didn't say anything to me, they just smashed the car and straight away asked for the money," he was quoted as saying by the Herald Sun.
Singh said he had already handed over $150 cash and his phone when one of the men punched him and the group sped off in the two cars leaving him with a bloodied lip and driver with a broken arm.
"They hit very badly you know, abusing him, you know, saying you're Indian, go back to your country," Sunny Singh, owner of the taxi service, told a radio channel in Melbourne.
"They're very scared, they don't want to drive anymore...no one knows what might happen next," he said.
